THE 
ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATiUi 
IN A DEMOCRACY 



HORACE A. HOLLISTER 



THE 

ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

IN A DEMOCRACY 



THE 

ADMINISTEATION OF EDUCATION 

II A DEMOCRACY 



BY 

HORACE A. HOLLISTER 

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION AND HIGH SCHOOL VISITOR AT THE UNIVERSITY 

OF ILLINOIS 

AUTHOR OF "high SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION" 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON 



V 



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Copyright, 1914. by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 




m ?6 I9!4 

g)Cl.A3764r>9 



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TO THE MEMORY OF 

JOSIAH L. PICKARD 

TEACHER, FRIEND, AND EXEMPLAR OF 
A NOBLE CITIZENSHIP 



"For this jealous insistence by the States upon their sov- 
ereign power in school affairs I have only praise. Nothing is 
more dangerous for the schools than an all-inclusive system 
that reaches out over broad domains, having no regard for ter- 
ritorial conditions, much less for purely local demands. Free- 
dom in administration is one of the most important requisites 
for the success of the public schools." 

— Georg Kerschensteiner, 
Director of the schools of Munich, Bavaria. 



PREFACE 

This book was projected with the idea that the time 
is here for such a preUminary treatment, as an organic 
whole, of the field of educational administration. In 
seeking for a unifying principle the inevitable choice 
fell to our national ideals as expressed in democracy as 
we Americans have conceived it. 

The aim has been to deal with principles, giving just 
enough space to history and description to furnish a 
suitable background and to account for sequences. In 
this way only did it seem possible to deal with the prob- 
lems presented in such a constructively critical manner 
as the situation seemed to demand. 

The book makes its appeal (i) to teachers and stu- 
dents of education, (2) to school boards and all school 
officials, and (3) to public men and legislators interested 
in a comprehensive survey of the problems of public 
education. 

For materials the author has made free use of reports 

and bulletins of the United States Commissioner's ofhce, 

of State departments of education, and of city boards 

and superintendents; of various studies by educational 

experts of colleges and universities and among school 

superintendents. Perhaps it is fair to say, however, 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

that the chief source has been from an experience of 
over thirty years in direct relationship with public 
schools and public education, and as a constant student 
of the problems thus presented. 

Acknowledgment is due and gratefully expressed for 
the many courtesies of school officials in various cities 
visited or where application was made for published 
reports and other documents bearing upon the subjects 
passed in review. Especially is such acknowledgment 
due to Doctor L. D. Coffman, of the School of Educa- 
tion, and Dean Eugene Davenport, of the College of 
Agriculture, University of Illinois, for careful and sym- 
pathetic reading of the manuscript and for numerous 
and valuable suggestions and criticisms. 

The Author. 
University of Illinois, 
May, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

PART ONE 

Field and Scope of Treatment Outlined 



PAGE 



Chapter I — Preliminary Statement .... i 

I. National movements. 2. Motives for organized systems 
of education. 3. Steps leading to secularization of education. 

4. Causes of slow development of popular education. 5. Con- 
ditions calculated to reveal defects. 6. Basis and method of 
this discussion. 

Chapter II — National Ideals and Standards 12 

I. Massachusetts leads in setting up ideals. 2, Educa- 
tional ideals of early statesmen. 3. Federal policy concerning 
education. 4. State systems and the training of teachers. 

5. Federal land grants. 6. Bureau of Education established. 
7. Slowness of acceptance by the masses. 8. National stand- 
ards set. 9. Evidences of advancement. 

Chapter III — Evolution of Free Common 

Schools 24 

I. Early types. 2. Beginnings in Germany. 3. Beginnings 
in the Netherlands. 4. Denmark. 5. Norway. 6. Austria. 
7. Scotland and England. 8. France. 9. Simultaneous de- 
velopment of pubhc education. 10. Description of the Prus- 
sian system as a type. 11. Secularization largely the result of 
a rehgious movement. 12. Beginnings in New England. 
13, Pennsylvania. 14. New York and New Jersey. 15. Del- 
aware and Maryland. 16. Virginia. 17. The Carolinas and 
Georgia. 18. Common origin and character in Europe and 
America. 19. Some striking differences. 20. The United 
States as type for this study. 21. European influence upon 
America. 

iz 



X CONTENTS 

PART TWO 

Society's Part in the Administration of Education 

PAGE 

Chapter IV — The Establishment of Schools: 

Laws, and Units of Control .... 44 

I. Significance of constitutional treatment of education. 

2. Nature and extent of such legislation. 3. Appearance of 
local influences. 4. Other notable provisions in State constitu- 
tions. 5. Influence of historical movements noted. 6. Ten- 
dency toward centralized control. 7. Constitutions mark evo- 
lution of conception of democracy. 8. Legislatures have 
supplemented constitutional provisions, 9. Units of control 
under religious influences. 10. Development of city units. 11. 
Principles involved. 12. Reasons for tendency toward cen- 
traUzed control. 13. Prevalence of local district control. 14. 
Changed conditions call for consolidation. 15. The district 
tested by the three principles. 16. The township unit. 17. 
Township units tested. 18. The city as a unit of control. 
19. County units. 20. The same tests applied to the county 
unit. 21. The State considered as a unit. 22. National con- 
trol and influence. 

Chapter V — The Establishment of Schools 

(Continued). Types of Schools Set Up 72 

I. Principles by which we may measure and test our school 
system. 2. Components of our national system of education. 

3. Kindergartens and elementary schools. 4. High schools. 
5. Statistical summary. 6. Higher education. 7. Industrial 
education. 8. Normal schools. 9. Schools for defectives 
and dehnquents. 10. Military and naval schools. 11. Units 
of control — preliminary considerations. 12. Control of rural 
schools. 13. Provisions for supervision of rural schools. 
14. General conditions in city schools. 15. Wide variation in 
character of schools provided. 16. Need of industrial training. 

Chapter VI — The System as Tested by the 

Five Principles of Chapter V . . . . 90 

I. Application of principle one. 2. Our schools as tested by 
principle two. 3. Schools fall short under principle three. 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

4. Need of a better economy shown — principle four. 5. Why 
society must share the criticism of the schools. 6. Need of 
economy in time. 7. Application of principle five. 8. Need 
of social like-mindedness. 9. Need of better organization. 
10. High schools should be free to all. 11. Neglect of rural- 
school needs. 12. Where colleges and universities fall short. 
13. Better classification of defectives and dehnquents. 

Chapter VII — Boards of Education . . . . io6 

I, Popular participation the rule in our school organization. 
2. Results of lack of such participation. 3, Logical limita- 
tions to centralized control. 4. Operation of this principle in 
case of boards of control. 5. Manner of choosing district and 
city boards. 6. Term of service. 7. Co-ordination of boards 
of large and small units. 8. State boards of education. 9. 
State institutional boards. 10. Haphazard growth of meth- 
ods of control. 11. Persistence of traditions. 12. Discussion 
of types. Boards of rural and village schools. 13. County 
boards. 14. Kentucky plan of rural organization, 15. City 
boards. 16. The committee system. 17. Methods of selec- 
tion of city boards. 18. Special investigations as related to 
city boards. 19. Make-up of an ideal city board. 20. The 
State type of board. 21. Function of State boards confused 
between two ideals. 22. Trustees and regents of State institu- 
tions. 23. AppHcation of principles of control to State types. 

24. How to make State boards representative in character. 

25. Necessity of independence of State boards. 

Chapter VIII — Maintenance and Other Fis- 
cal Aspects of Public Education . . 133 

I. Evolution of the idea of popular support of schools. 2. 
Forces favorable and unfavorable. 3. Summary of arguments. 
4. Need of more money for schools. 5. Advantages and dis- 
advantages of direct taxation. 6. Inadequacy and inequali- 
ties in support of schools. 7. Important principles involved. 
8. Basis for State support. 9. A working scheme of mainte- 
nance. 10. Application in case of Federal aid. 11. Increasing 
demands and fixed rates of levy. 12. Justice and wisdom in 
Federal aid. 13. Problem of compensation of teachers. 14. 
Reasons for present inadequacy. 15. The question of arbitrary 
adjustments of salaries. 16. Effect of salary conditions on 
shortage of teachers. 17. Teachers' pensions as a remedy. 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

i8. Doctor Pritchett on teachers' pensions. 19. A second par- 
tial remedy. 20. The problem of school accounting. 21. The 
St. Louis plan of accounting. 2 2 . Need of publicity in account- 
ing. 

Chapter IX — Preparation of Teachers . .164 

I. Skill and professional knowledge required. 2. Public 
policy to train teachers at public expense. 3. Relative im- 
portance of skill and knowledge. 4. Training of teachers in 
high schools. 5. Normal schools typical training-schools. 

6. Need and propriety of Federal aid for normal schools. 

7. The city training-school. 8. Colleges and universities as 
training-schools for teachers. 9. The university school of 
education. 10. What should be the relation of the three types 
of training? 11. Methods of co-ordinating the university and 
normal school. 12. Training of teachers in service. 



Chapter X — The Selection of Teachers . . 182 

I. Method of selection of teachers. 2. State- wide system 
of selection needed. 3. Magnitude of the teaching service. 
4. Urgent need of better methods of selection. 5. Present 
practice too cumbersome. 6. City certification — its weakness. 
7. County certification. 8. State certification. 9. Lack of 
conformity to any system among States. 10. Recognition of 
institutional training as a basis for certification. 11. Summary 
of conditions needed for efficiency. 12. Specific selection by 
boards and supervisors. 13. Importance of this function of 
boards of education. 14. Expert observation of work as a 
basis for selection. 15. Methods and difficulties of large cities. 
16. Examples of methods used by cities. 

Chapter XI — Physical Equipment of Schools 209 

I. Magnitude of the problem. 2. General conditions to be 
cared for. 3. The elementary building. 4. The intermediate 
type. 5. City high-school buildings. 6. The small-city or 
town type. 7. Special provisions and equipments. 



CONTENTS xiii 

PART THREE 
The Administration of Instruction 

PAGE 

Chapter XII — Recapitulation and Definition 218 

I. The mechanism of administration viewed as a whole. 
2. Conclusions from what precedes. 3. Administration of in- 
struction defined. 4. Things to be kept in mind in the discus- 
sion to follow. 



Chapter XIII — Supervision 225 

I. The educational expert of the system. 2. What the posi- 
tion involves. 3. Special and grade supervision. 4. Super- 
vision of rural and village schools. 5. County boards and bet- 
ter teachers the chief needs. 6. Supervision of small cities. 
7. Supervision of large-city systems. 8. Purposes and aims 
of supervising agencies. 9. The superintendent and the 
training of teachers in service. 10. Function of supervisors in 
the selection of teachers. 11. Things superintendents should 
know. 12. State supervision. 13. Supervision of normal 
schools needed. 14. Supervision of instruction in a univer- 
sity. 15. Inter-institutional supervision. 



Chapter XIV — The Inspection of Schools . 249 

I. Definitions. 2. Recent development of the inspectorial 
function in education. 3. Some interesting variations and 
their causes. 4. Types of inspection developed. 5. Work of 
the General Education Board in the South. 6. Associations of 
colleges and secondary schools. 7. Some conclusions. 



Chapter XV — School Attendance . . . . 266 

I. Causes affecting attendance at school. 2. Legislation 
affecting attendance. 3. The question of free transportation. 
4. Free text-book laws. 5. Free tuition in high schools. 
6. Absence from school as a factor in retardation and elim- 
ination. 7. The truancy problem. 8. Plans for supervision 
of attendance. 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter XVI — Physical Education and Health 277 

I. The principle involved. 2. Relation of health to attend- 
ance and instruction. 3. Health supervision demanded as re- 
sult of neglect. 4. Medical inspection the first need. 5. The 
psychological clinic next. 6. Medical supervision of games 
and sports required. 7. Emphasis should be placed on hy- 
gienic conditions. 8. Specially trained experts needed. 9. 
Important recommendations of American Medical Association. 
10. Legislation providing for medical inspection. 11. The 
playground movement. 12. The school should supervise the 
play. 



Chapter XVII— The Curricula of the Schools 289 

I. Sequence in education. 2. Interdependence of the three 
stages of education. 3. Basis for organization of educational 
institutions. 4. Problem of differentiation of pupils' work. 
5. Organizing and adapting schools to varying needs. 6. Con- 
ditions needed for rural schools. 7. Town and city organiza- 
tion. 8. The problem as it appears in colleges and universities. 
9. Requirements in the case of defectives. 10. Programme of 
the elementary school. 11. Programme of the high school. 
12. The weakness of the old order. 13. The element most 
needed is an industrial "core." 14. Specialization and ad- 
justability. 15. Knowledge lacking of educational values. 

16. The demand is for greater flexibility of the curriculum. 

17. The principle of economy involved. 



Chapter XVIII — The Teacher 313 

I. The teacher should volunteer the service. 2. The t3TDical 
teacher characterized. 3. Personahty in teaching. 4. The 
teacher's ethics concerning appointments. 5. Professional 
attitude of the teacher. 6. The teacher's rights and priv- 
ileges. 7. The teacher's duty to self. 8. Preparation which 
the service demands. 



Chapter XIX— Classification and Promotions 326 

I. The problem stated. 2. The theory of classification. 
3. Frequent and careful revision necessary. 4. Individual 
work and correct measure of achievement. 5. Correct classi- 
fication calls for careful study of changes in individuals. 6. 



CONTENTS XV 



Special care in case of abnormals. 7. Periods of promotion 
as affecting classification. 8. What shall be the basis for pro- 
motions? 9. The question as apphed to high schools. 10. In 
higher institutions. 11. The problem of transfers. 12. Need 
of reform in the matter of transfers. 13. Scientific treatment 
will bring relief. 14. University of Missouri plan. 



Chapter XX — Activities and Relations of the 

School 341 

I. The daily programme. 2. The problem of fatigue. 3. 
Value of the play instinct. 4. Theory of rest. 5. The lunch 
problem. 6. The problem in higher institutions. 7. Mean- 
ing of recitation and study periods. 8. The school as a com- 
munity. 9. School savings-banks and school gardens. 10. 
High-school management of business affairs. 11. Extension 
work of the school. 12. Vacation schools. 13. The all-year 
type of school. 

Chapter XXI — Private Education and Bene- 
factions AS Related to Public Educa- 
tion 356 

I. Growth of private compared with pubHc education. 
2, The problem presented. 3. What should be the attitude of 
the State? 4. Educational foundations. 

Chapter XXII — The Forward Look .... 362 

I. Persistence of an educational ideal. 2. The problem of 
to-day. 3. The great question of social conservation. 4. The 
"feeling of nationality" our hope. 5. The five essentials to 
progress. 

References for Further Reading, by Chapters 

AND IN General 372 

Index » 379 



THE 

ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION IN 

A DEMOCRACY 

PART ONE 

FIELD AND SCOPE OF TREATMENT 
OUTLINED 

CHAPTER I 

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 

The nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth 
centuries have staged no more remarkable action in the 
world's drama than the evolution of pubHc education. 
Sprung from the philosophical theories of Plato and 
Aristotle, this evolution did not reach concrete and tan- 
gible expression until the sixteenth century A. D. One 
of the earhest and most notable fruits of the Reforma- 
tion during this century was the impetus given to the 
movement for popular education. In the same century 
the Dutch celebrated their victories over Spain, in their 
remarkable struggle for religious freedom, by establish- 
ing both common schools and universities. Simultane- 
ously was laid, in Massachusetts, the foundation and 
early foreshadowing of our own system of common 
schools. As an essential part of the same general mani- 
festation of this earher growth came the schools estab- 
lished by the Dutch in New Amsterdam and the Quakers 
in Pennsylvania. 

1 



2 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

I. National Movements 

Not, however, until the Revolutionary War had ce- 
mented the American colonies into a nation whose earlier 
declaration of independence became a reality with the 
war's close did the idea of free public education take 
form as a national policy. About the same time Prussia, 
awakened by the losses of the Napoleonic Wars, set reso- 
lutely about the task of establishing a system of uni- 
versal education which later became the dominant 
system of the united German Empire and the greatest 
system of popular education in modern Europe. 

In a similar way France was roused into action by 
the Franco-Prussian War and set seriously about the 
work of organizing the educational forces of the Repub- 
lic into a state system of pubHc education. Switzer- 
land, Italy, and the Scandinavian states have emulated 
Prussia, with varying degrees of success, until all these 
countries are now in line as representing, with us, the 
democratic idea of education. Japan, in the Orient, 
stands forth as a remarkable example of the transfer of 
national methods in education. Here a people of differ- 
ent race ideals has succeeded in adapting much of the 
best in education that Western civiHzation has produced, 
thus giving that nation a most complete system of pub- 
lic schools under efficient organization. This Japan has 
done, too, apparently without sacrificing any essential 
features of her own national ideals. 

2. Motives for Organized Systems of Education 

The narrower and more selfish interests of individuals, 
clans, or families, or the more effective and general prop- 
agation of religious doctrines, were the earlier motives 
for organized effort in education. Of these two, rehg- 



PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 3 

ious interests came to dominate the schools on account 
of the effective organization of various churches and 
cults. The growth of cities in Europe, the revival and 
spread of commerce among the new modern nations, the 
reorganization of industries to suit the demands of this 
wider distribution of their products, and, above all, the 
spread of democratic ideals, all conspired to change the 
motive of education to these more secular interests and 
to transfer the administration of education from church 
to state. 

3. Steps Leading to Secularization of Education 

At first education was administered almost solely by 
the church. Thus it was that the masses came to look 
upon it as a secondary rehgious function of that body. 
Occasionally individual enterprises sprang up as com- 
mercial ventures; but the idea of a system of pubHc 
education, administered by experts especially trained 
and equipped for such service, has developed slowly in 
most countries. Meantime the church, especially in its 
original types and where it was definitely estabhshed 
by the state, has contended strenuously for the reten- 
tion of the educational function as its prerogative. 

Against this attitude of the rehgious orders two forces 
have operated powerfully and are still operative. In 
the first place, the Reformation resulted in splitting 
organized Christianity into numerous sects and denomi- 
nations, thus distributing both the authority and the 
responsibility of education among a large number of bod- 
ies. One very important and direct result of this change 
was to leave a large body of people who were unattached 
to any Christian sect without means of education in a 
form acceptable to them. 

In the second place, the growth of the idea of democ- 



4 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

racy has put a peculiar stress upon the need of universal 
education. The development of modern science and its 
application to the industries has further accentuated the 
necessity of finding some scheme which will insure such 
universal educational facilities. 

Out of the reaction of these contending forces has come 
the present situation with regard to the organization 
and administration of education. As we may readily 
see, the situation varies greatly in the different countries 
above referred to. The more directly these have come 
up out of traditional ecclesiastical control, the more dif- 
ficult has it been to break away from this and to make 
education a secular function of the State. In this re- 
spect Japan represents the extreme of release from tra- 
ditional complications. The British colonial govern- 
ments of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are 
further illustrations of a weakened influence of tradi- 
tion as compared with the mother country. 

In the United States, while we are still left with a 
dominant secular control, yet the peculiar nature of our 
institutions, together with the vastness of the immigra- 
tion to our shores, has not left us free from some serious 
compHcations in this respect. There can be no ground 
for doubt, however, as to the outcome. If we are to 
maintain the free institutions for which our fathers 
contended we must maintain a complete and universal 
system of free public education. Church schools and 
schools under private control may still be maintained, 
and for an indefinite time to come. They need not be 
interfered with so long as they are able to show results 
in education that are a reasonably satisfactory equiva- 
lent of the secular schools of the State. Such a con- 
tinuance of these schools, however, can never relieve the 
State of its obligation to support, at public expense, 



PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 5 

such a system of education as shall fully meet the re- 
quirements for maintaining those conditions of intelH- 
gence, skill, and moraHty among the people necessary to 
the perpetuation of our democratic institutions. 

The inadequacy of a system of schools administered 
solely by the church stands out more clearly with each 
advanced step in the evolution of democratic societies 
with their ever-increasing demands for technical educa- 
tion. 

4. Causes of Slow Development of Popular Education 

The retardation which the tradition of religious con- 
trol of education has caused in the development of an 
efficiently administered educational scheme of universal 
character has been much greater than at first appears. 
In the first place it has made it more difficult for the 
people at large to grasp the significance of education as 
a pubKc measure and financed from the common trea- 
sury. So deeply did the popular mind become habitu- 
ated to the performance, by the church, of the educa- 
tional function that many even yet fail to appreciate 
the need and the economic importance, for instance, of 
the supervisory function as exercised by the State or 
district in the management of schools. The same state 
of mind has been a chief cause for a similar lethargy in 
regard to the professional training of those who are to 
teach and supervise these schools. Nevertheless, our 
schools may now be said to be completely secularized. 
To quote from a recent study of this subject i^ "To-day 
we find in every State a system of pubhc education in 
which civic and industrial aims are dominant, in w^hich 
religious instruction is either entirely ehminated or else 

^Samuel W. Brown, "The Secularization of American Education," 
contributions to Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 191 2. 



6 ADMINISTRATION OF* EDUCATION 

reduced to the barest and most formal elements, and the 
control of which is vested well-nigh exclusively in the 
State or some subdivision thereof. Two factors have 
been dominant in bringing about this transformation. 
The first of these is the conviction that a republic can 
securely rest only on an educated citizenship; the sec- 
ond is a sacred regard by the State for the rehgious 
opinion of the individual citizen." 

Another cause of this retardation is seen in the diffi- 
culty with which the full significance of democracy in 
education is grasped by the popular mind. Even yet 
there are many who think of schools chiefly as a means 
of advantage to the individual or his family. From the 
point of view of the childless taxpayer this takes form 
in a protest at having to help educate his neighbor's 
children. The man who patronizes only private schools, 
for which he pays directly, or the man who, for con- 
science' sake, helps pay for a school as a religious propa- 
ganda, often calls the additional tax for the support of 
public schools unjust. These momentarily forget their 
share of interest in that part of the body poKtic which 
can neither afford the luxury of exclusiveness which the 
private school offers nor accept the doctrines which the 
church would inculcate. 

Even if it were possible for all to accept some of the 
many forms of religious faith as a basis for education, 
such a scheme could not begin to compete with the 
State in the efficiency of the schools organized. Many 
of the different religious denominations are small and 
therefore financially weak. They could never hope to 
keep pace with the stronger organizations in the support 
of adequate school faciUties. 

Along with other things, the ability to understand the 
greatly increased cost of education has developed tar- 



PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 7 

dily. Gradually much of the work of the home and of 
the church as well have been transferred to the school. 
At the same time there has come a rapid increase in the 
demand for educational faciUties extending beyond the 
merely elementary stages. Thus it has gradually come 
about that many services previously rendered to society 
through other instrumentaHties are now expected from 
the schools along with the natural increase of educational 
demands, and the resulting increase in the educational 
budget is correspondingly large. These various services 
which society has thus laid upon the schools are funda- 
mental to our industrial growth and to the maintenance 
of our national ideals, and hence not to be evaded with- 
out serious loss to the nation. But the massing of these 
and the consequent, largeness of the direct tax involved 
is something for which the popular mind has not been 
prepared. This situation, together with the traditional 
Anglo-Saxon dislike for direct taxation, has materially 
retarded the development of our educational ideals as 
compared with our growth in other respects. 

At the very beginning of experiments with popular 
education, for want of a very clearly conceived ideal as 
to materials and methods, we accepted the traditional 
school as it had evolved under ecclesiastical administra- 
tion. This fact, together with long neglect of the study 
of educational philosophy as appHed to the needs of 
a democracy, has been another cause for retardation. 
Very slowly, indeed, have we proceeded in breaking 
with the traditional types which we thus inherited. Nor 
has this release from hampering traditions been uniform. 
Thus far, in the rapid development of our vast domains, 
the movement of educational progress seems to have fol- 
lowed the westward migration of succeeding generations 
of our younger population. la several ways it is true 



8 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

that the greatest advancement to-day in that form of 
popular education befitting a democracy is to be found 
on the Pacific coast. Meantime, the more frequent min- 
gHng of educational workers is bringing about a more 
general diffusion of ideas, methods, and types. Thus 
the East is giving to the West the results of its more 
highly perfected forms of education, while it also receives 
from its Western offspring the more highly perfected 
ideals of education which regions untrammelled by tra- 
ditions have been able to develop under the skilful di- 
rection of men of high educational attainments drawn 
from all sections of our country. 

5. Conditions Calculated to Reveal Defects 

The events of the past half century in our national 
development have been well calculated to bring out 
rather sharply the defects of our pubHc educational 
scheme which are directly traceable to the conditions 
which we have here set in brief review. The increasing 
sharpness of commercial competition among the great 
producing nations; the extensive travel and the study 
abroad of many of our leaders in educational thought; 
the opportunities of comparing the abilities of the dif- 
ferent competing nations in the application of skill and 
of scientific knowledge to the great producing industries 
which the numerous international expositions have af- 
forded have had a remarkable awakening effect on the 
popular estimate of the value to a nation of an efficient 
scheme of education. Heretofore we have had no definite 
standards by which to estimate results. True, we have 
read the stories of the experiences of other nations; we 
have even looked on placidly while Japan was making 
preparation for the adjustment of her educational forces; 
but it has required the limelight of a direct comparison 



PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 9 

and a relentless competition in the world's marts to fully 
arouse us. 

As a result we find our school system subjected to 
searching criticism on the part of a public which has 
remained rather lethargic until now, and which even 
yet seems inclined to overlook its own part in the re- 
tarded growth of our educational methods and facilities. 
This popular criticism promises well for the future. It 
indicates that there is at least some degree of compre- 
hension as to the real value and importance of having 
the most efficiently and economically administered sys- 
tem of education which modern scientific training can 
evolve. This means, again, that, although the educa- 
tional budget must ever increase, yet people will no 
longer haggle over the cost of an undertaking from which 
society is able to realize so much both in increased 
wealth and in security, pubHc and private. 

6. Basis and Method of This Discussion 

The time, therefore, seems opportune for the discussion 
of the various problems of educational administration 
in the light of present conditions, social and economic, 
and in harmony with such principles of psychology, ped- 
agogy, and sociology as are now clearly established. 
Much stress has thus far been laid upon school manage- 
ment, with almost exclusive reference to the direction 
of the instructional work of the school. It is believed 
that there is need of a more systematic discussion of all 
the related aspects of school administration in order 
that the bearing of each phase of it upon the others may 
be the more fully appreciated. 

The subject of public education is a broad one — too 
broad to admit of comprehensive treatment in a single 
volume. It is proposed in this present effort to confine 



10 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the work to a discussion of the school as that particular 
instrument which society has set up for training the 
young to efficiency in service and to the abihty to start 
as nearly abreast of the time in which they live as is 
possible through any such conventional practice. In 
this treatment all types of school education necessary 
to the operation of a State system in a democracy will 
come under review, together with such accessory fea- 
tures of education as may be clearly needed in order to 
give full setting to the situation. 

The estabHshment of a school in any form involves 
the idea of the organization of materials and forces into 
an environment created especially for the purpose of 
setting up those reactions in the young which are found 
to be necessary in order to accomplish the purposes of 
education as just stated. The materials of education 
are to be provided and directive intelHgence in their 
appKcation and use must be supplied. 

Society itself must determine what schools are to be 
provided; what materials are to be used; what teachers 
and supervisors shall be employed and on what condi- 
tions. On the other hand, there must be expert direc- 
tion in securing those adjustments among teachers, ma- 
terials, and pupils necessary to the accomplishment of 
the immediate ends of education. These two funda- 
mental aspects of school work give us the two leading 
departments of administrative effort. The first of these 
is usually set forth in laws the execution of which is 
vested in various State and local officials including 
boards of education. The second is delegated, at the 
discretion of educational boards, to such teachers and 
supervisors as may be selected and employed by them 
under the laws creating and defining the schools to be 
established. 



PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 11 

Under the first it is proposed to discuss especially the 
estabhshment, equipment, and maintenance of schools 
and the training, selection, employment, and compensa- 
tion of teachers. Under the second will be considered 
the administration of instruction in its various phases. 
In both cases the purpose will be to get at underlying 
principles rather than to give a descriptive treatment, 
and to rely, as far as possible, on what is at present 
known of the character of education needed in a de- 
mocracy and the methods of attaining it. 



CHAPTER II 
NATIONAL roEALS AND STANDARDS 

The dominant motive for American colonization is 
found in that general revolt against corrupt ecclesiasti- 
cism known in history as the Reformation. Closely fol- 
lowing this denunciation of rehgious corruption came a 
call for the better education of all the people. The 
later declaration of poHtical freedom by the American 
colonists was the natural corollary to the initial motive 
for revolt. This applies especially to colonization in 
New England, New Amsterdam, and Pennsylvania. 
Thus it was inevitable that, from the first, a free gav- 
ernment and a system of universal education were 
evolved side by side and as complements each of the 
other. 

I. Massachusetts Leads in Setting Up Ideals 

While all of the above-named colonies shared in this 
evolution, yet matters moved more rapidly in Massachu- 
setts than in the other colonies. As a result there were 
early established here some of the most fundamental 
principles since embodied in the educational system of 
this country. Among these principles, and first ex- 
pressed in the laws of 1642 and 1647 making provision 
for education in Massachusetts, are the following:^ 

"The universal education of youth is essential to the 

1 See Martin, "Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School Sys- 
tem," pp. 14, 15- 

12 



NATIONAL IDEALS AND STANDARDS 13 

well-being of the State; the obligation to furnish this 
education rests primarily upon the parent; the State 
has the right to enforce this obhgation; the State may 
fix a standard which shall determine the kind of educa- 
tion and the minimum amount; a general tax may be 
levied, although school attendance is not general, to be 
used in providing such education as the State requires; 
education higher than the rudiments may be supplied 
by the State, and opportunity must be provided at pub- 
He expense for youths who wish to be fitted for the 
university." Thus early were formulated the essential 
features of a free common-school system such as has 
since been established in each State of our larger Union. 

The principles here enunciated are comprehensive 
enough, when broadly interpreted, to serve as a founda- 
tion for the organization and establishment of a com- 
plete system of education; but, owing to the injfluence 
of tradition, the unfolding of such a system has been 
very slow and even yet is found to be incomplete in 
some important features. 

2. Educational Ideals of Early Statesmen 

From the very beginning of the nation the leaders of 
public thought and action have cherished high ideals as 
to the intelligence demanded of a self-governing people; 
but the people in whose hands has been the development 
of our educational system have manifested a conserva- 
tism that is Httle in keeping with their enthusiasm fori 
free institutions. Among the framers of our govern- 
ment were a number of men who had caught clear 
visions of the future republic and the stress and strain 
that would come to it with its growth; but the major- 
ity seemed to respond but feebly to their appeals for 
some action in regard to education. Often, indeed, the 



14 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

attitude was that of pure indifference. Washington 
talked and wrote tirelessly in his advocacy of a national 
university which should set up standards in learning 
and research and, by bringing together men from all 
parts of the nation, help to break down or prevent the 
growth of sectionalism. 

No less persistent and more effective were Jefferson's 
ideals in regard to a complete system of public educa- 
tion under local control and supported by voluntary 
local taxation. 

In New York Alexander Hamilton left an indeHble 
record of his pecuHar ideas of nationalism upon the 
educational system of that State when he secured the 
enactment by the legislature of his measure for the es- 
tablishment of the Regency of the University of New 
York.^ 

3. Federal Policy Concerning Education 

None of these conceptions of educational organization 
found expression in the national Constitution. After 
some discussion of the proposition to establish a national 
university even that matter was left for later sessions 
of the national Congress to wrestle with. The entire 
organization and management of public schools, which 
all agreed were fundamental to the estabhshment of a 
government based upon the franchise of its citizens, was, 
by common consent, left in the hands of the States. 

Another gHmpse of the trend of thought in regard to 
education comes to us in connection with the enactment 
of the Ordinance of 1787, and its renewal under the 
Constitution of 1789. The granting of one section of 
land out of each township under the Congressional sur- 

1 "Works of Alexander Hamilton," edited by John C. Hamilton, edi- 
tion of 1850, vol. II, pp. 341/- 



NATIONAL IDEALS AND STANDARDS 15 

vey as an endowment to education in the States, with 
the later addition of a second section, served as a con- 
crete and tangible expression of the sentiment handed 
down in the language of the Ordinance. 

The fact that the management of these land gifts and 
their proceeds was left to the States placed further em- 
phasis upon the policy of non-interference by the Federal 
Government in the domain of public education. A Httle 
supervisory control by the central government might 
have made possible the saving of millions to the distrib- 
utable funds of the States. But the decentralizing in- 
fluences growing out of the revolutionary movements 
of Europe at that time seem to have rendered such a 
procedure impossible if not unthought of. 

4. State Systems and the Training of Teachers 

Very early in the development of State systems, es- 
pecially in the older States, it became evident that some 
special provision must be made for the training of 
teachers in a professional way. This naturally met with 
the opposition of those interested in colleges where 
classical and religious training predominated, and of all 
those who still thought of education as a function of 
the church rather than of the state. Indeed, it appears 
that these same classes were for a long time opposed to 
pubKc education in general.^ Various sporadic attempts 
at providing for the professional training of teachers were 
made by private institutions very early in the nineteenth 
century. But not until 1839 were the first normal schools 
really estabhshed in Massachusetts. Similar schools 
were begun in New York in 1844, Connecticut in 1852, 
Rhode Island in 1854, and Pennsylvania in 1855. Thus 

^See Martin, "Evolution of Massachusetts Public School System," 
chap. IV. 



16 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

by the end of the first half century of progress in our 
educational system this important feature of the work, 
already firmly established in Prussia, was generally recog- 
nized by the States. 

5. Federal Land Grants 

The most remarkable manifestation of national ideals 
in education as expressed by the Federal Government had 
its rise in the Central West at about the middle of the 
nineteenth century. The movement began with the or- 
ganization of an Industrial League in 185 1 at Granville, 
111.^ Through the influence of this League the General 
Assembly of that State, in February, 1853, memoriaKzed 
Congress with regard to the enactment of a law *' donat- 
ing to each State in the Union an amount of public lands 
not less in value than five hundred thousand dollars for 
the liberal endowment of a system of industrial univer- 
sities ... for the more liberal and practical education of 
our industrial classes and their teachers." Professor 
J. B. Turner, chief director of the Industrial League, 
first outlined the general plan of these institutions. 
Through the activity of the League a bill was introduced 
in Congress, in 1857, which embodied the proposed en- 
dowment. The bill passed, but was vetoed by Pres- 
ident Buchanan. It was known as the Morrill Act, 
and was finally passed and approved by President Lin- 
coln, July 2, 1862. The bill as passed was different 
from the first proposal in that it provided for the grant- 
ing of land to the amount of thirty thousand acres for 
each representative and senator to which any State was 
entitled in Congress. Subsequent grants, as that in 
1887 for founding experiment stations in agriculture, the 

1 Edmund J. James, "Origin of the Land Grant Act of 1862," Uni- 
versity Studies, vol. 4, no. i, University of Illinois. 



NATIONAL IDEALS AND STANDARDS 17 

second Morrill Act of 1890, the Nelson amendment 
which followed, and the Adams Act of 1906, greatly in- 
creasing the funds for experiment station work, carry 
the same general significance with respect to the na- 
tional poHcy regarding education as did the original 
act of 1862. 

6. Bureau of Education Established 

Again the Federal Government gave expression to a 
recognized need of a national supervisory function with 
regard to education by estabhshing, in 1867, under the 
Department of State, the United States Bureau of Edu- 
cation and appointing a commissioner to attend to the 
duties prescribed. No directive authority over the 
schools was vested in this office, but the commissioner 
was authorized to collect and compile statistics and to 
furnish such other information of a national and inter- 
national character as should be deemed serviceable to 
the educational interests of the country. 

7. Slowness of Acceptance by the Masses 

While we have these evidences of a national feeling 
for the free education of the masses, yet the masses 
seem to have been very slow in acquiring ideals of edu- 
cation sufficiently strong to keep up the standards re- 
quired under our manner of government. Fortunate, 
indeed, was it for this country that many of the colonies 
developed so early a scheme for carrying on free public 
schools. Without the leadership of such a State as 
Massachusetts, it is impossible to say what might long 
since have become of our experiment in democracy. As 
it was, Massachusetts, even, suffered a relapse which re- 
quired a great educational revival to overcome. In 1824 
we find James G. Carter stating the situation thus: "If 



18 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the policy of the Legislature in regard to free schools for 
the last twenty years be not changed, the institution 
which has been the glory of New England will, in twenty 
years more, be extinct." ^ It is a long, hard road to that 
enlightenment of a people necessary to the exercise of 
sovereign power in a free country. Perhaps no one has 
expressed this problem more clearly than has Horace 
Mann, called, as he was, to lead in the great revival. 
These are his words: ^ "The education of the whole peo- 
ple, in a republican government, can never be attained 
without the consent of the whole people. Compulsion, 
even if it were desirable, is not an available instrument. 
EnHghtenment, not coercion, is our resource. The na- 
ture of education must be explained. The whole mass 
of mind must be instructed in regard to its comprehen- 
sion and enduring interests. We cannot drive our people 
up a dark avenue even though it be the right one; 
but must hang the starry Hghts of knowledge about 
it, and show them not only the directness of the course 
to the goal of prosperity and honor but the beauty of the 
way that leads to it." 

Out of such a campaign of enlightenment, wisely begun 
by those who preceded, and pushed with enthusiasm, 
tact, and patient endurance by Mann and his coworkers, 
came the rehabilitation of the public schools of Massa- 
chusetts, the estabHshment of normal schools, and the 
complete and final commitment of the people of that 
State to a broad and efficient system of pubHc educa- 
tion. And it is not too much to say that the lights thus 
kindled and kept burning have multiplied themselves 

^ In an address entitled "The Schools of Massachusetts in 1824," 
Old South Leaflets, no. 134. 

-See "Life and Works of Horace Mann, Lectures and Reports," II, 
p. 286. Lee and Shepard, Boston, 189 1. 



NATIONAL IDEALS AND STANDARDS 19 

again and again as the need has come out of the rapid 
upbuilding of that larger nation which has spread be- 
yond the Appalachians, even to the western slopes of 
the Rockies and the Sierras. 

8. National Standards Set 

It is a remarkable situation which is presented when 
we contemplate the nation's attitude toward higher 
education and toward the general supervision of cer- 
tain aspects of our educational development which are 
clearly national in scope. With Washington's idea of 
a national university realized, what mighty power it 
must have exerted in unifying and giving clear outline 
to our educational aims and purposes, to say nothing of 
the advantages which must have been derived from the 
scientific research which such an institution would have 
fostered and developed! 

Not less disappointing, as we look for the nation's 
comprehension of the task it had assumed, is the sHght- 
ing way in which the whole matter of a national admin- 
istrative function in education has been treated. War, 
the navy, all other great pubKc affairs have found a 
ready recognition among the interests of the National 
Government. Educational institutions for the training 
of fighters have been provided; but when it comes to 
the great arts of peace and to that particular institution 
upon which, more than all else, the nation's welfare 
and security must depend, the Congress has remained 
strangely silent and conservative. 

In the provision made for industrial education we see 
a clearer vision and a higher purpose. In land grants 
and appropriations for higher institutions devoted to 
training and research in the great, fundamental indus- 
tries, the government authorities have fixed a purpose 



20 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

and standard for education in the States the beneficent 
force of which will appear more and more as the years 
pass. 

Wherever the Federal Government has undertaken 
educational work it has usually been of a high order. 
In military training this is especially noticeable. The 
men trained at West Point and AnnapoHs have usually 
proven themselves to be well trained not alone in the 
arts of war, but in some of the arts of peace as well. 
This seems especially true of those trained in engineer- 
ing. In these schools the government has thus set up 
standards of efficiency in service that have had a marked 
influence upon the country's ideals. So likewise the 
standards set by the various branches of the civil ser- 
vice, as determined by the examinations, have had a cer- 
tain influence in determining standards in education. 

But the real ideals and standards which the nation 
holds have unfolded gradually as our conception of de- 
mocracy has been slowly evolving through the experiences 
of years. For they are coming to us, as Horace Mann 
said, not by coercion but by enhghtenment. After all, 
it is our ideal of democracy that must determine our 
educational ideals. How httle the relation between 
the two was comprehended at first is plainly shown by 
the experience of Massachusetts. In this respect history 
is ever repeating itself. If we were to undertake to-day 
to measure the duration of our institutions in the light 
of the prevalent popular conception of the kind of gen- 
eral inteUigence necessary to efficient citizenship, it is 
doubtful if we should give as much time for their endur- 
ance as did James G. Carter, in 1824, to the free-school 
system of New England. But now, even as then, there 
are educational evangehsts abroad, speaking, writing, 
working tirelessly for that final day when all shall con- 



NATIONAL IDEALS AND STANDARDS 21 

cede the needs of popular education to the utmost of 
society's ability to provide. 

9. Evidences of Advancement 

Meanwhile, we have tried and doubtless are still to 
try many wasteful and costly experiments in our efforts 
to secure a reasonably complete, sane, and efficient ad- 
ministration of this very important branch .of service 
which society undertakes to render itself through co- 
operation. *'No deeper conviction," says President 
Butler,^ "pervades the people of the United States than 
that the preservation of liberty under the law, and of 
the institutions that are our precious possession and 
proud heritage, depends upon the intelligence of the 
whole people." If this is true, then, no matter how often 
we may fail in our experiments, ultimately we shall find 
a way to insure this intelligence. 

Recent years have witnessed a rapid change in the 
mental attitude of the nation in regard to education. 
In the first place, we have had opportunity to study 
more carefully the cases of Prussia and France and to 
understand what actuated them in the establishment of 
national educational systems. The development of our 
own national life; the growth of our population, bring- 
ing with it new problems as to citizenship, as to indus- 
tries, and as to social relations and international inter- 
ests; the consequent widening of our responsibilities — 
all these things have added materially to our realization 
of the vital relation which education bears to our exis- 
tence and the perpetuation of our national ideals and 
institutions. 

Then there has come about such a social change, due 

^ In " The Meaning of Education," pp. 108-109. New York. Mac- 
millan, 1808. 



22 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

to the division of labor and more extensive organization 
in production, as to make it necessary greatly to increase 
the work of the schools in order to replace much that 
can no longer be intrusted to the family or to other 
educational influences of the social group. 

As a result our conception of the function of public 
education has been greatly enlarged. We no longer 
think of the school as a place merely for acquiring the 
rudiments of learning, the arts of the school itself. The 
content of learning has been greatly increased. At the 
same time the necessity for industrial training to take 
the place of an obsolescent apprentice system has come 
to be quite generally recognized especially among social 
and industrial leaders. Along with this also comes a 
stressing of the demand for a different kind of moral 
training than that which has heretofore been thought 
of as a function of the school. 

The present outlook, then, as seen in the expression 
of our leaders in educational thought, calls for a system 
of education that shall embody a harmonious and related 
blending of intellectual, moral, and industrial training 
of all children and youth to the end that each may live 
efficiently, possessed of that civic and industrial intelH- 
gence, that skill to do a needed service, and that high 
moral sense which the nature of our existence as a de- 
mocracy is now seen to demand. 

To quote again from President Butler:^ "But I am 
profoundly convinced that the greatest educational need 
of our time, in higher and lower schools alike, is a fuller 
appreciation on the part of the teachers of what human 
institutions really mean and what tremendous moral is- 
sues and principles they involve. The ethics of individ- 
ual hfe must be traced to its roots in the ethics of the 

^ Op. cii., p. 121. 



NATIONAL IDEALS AND STANDARDS 23 

social whole. The family, property, the common law, 
the state, and the church are all involved. These and 
their products, taken together, constitute civilization 
and mark it off from barbarism. Inheritor of a glorious 
past, each generation is a trustee for posterity. To pre- 
serve, protect, and transmit its inheritance unimpaired 
is its highest duty. To accomplish this is not the task 
of the few but the duty of all." 



CHAPTER III 
EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 

The ferment of ideas and forces in mediaeval Europe 
produced the seed germs of our common-school system. 
There came out of that strange mingling of ancient civ- 
ilization with the Christianized barbarism of northern 
Europe, touched, in turn, by the life and learning of the 
East, a wonderful revival of trade and industries. This 
new life was destined soon to grow to greater propor- 
tions than the world of commerce and industry had yet 
seen. Centres of population teeming with the new ac- 
tivity developed rapidly. Out of this growth of cities 
new problems arose calling for a new education which 
the monastic schools could not offer. 

I. Early Types 

This condition of things gave rise to the burgh or city 
grammar-schools under the care of municipalities. The 
appearance of these schools, differentiated from the 
schools of the church to meet new social demands, 
doubtless marks the beginning of the modern secular 
free school.^ The opening of writing and ''reckoning" 
schools as private enterprises in the interests of the 
training demanded for business became a factor also in 
the development of these schools of the people. It re- 
mained only for the powerful influence of the Reformation 
to weld these all into a scheme of secular education for the 

1 See "A Study of Mediaeval Schools and School Work," L. F. Ander- 
son, Pedagogical Semmary, vol. XIV, pp. 223-82. 

24 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 25 

masses which was the forerunner of the American com- 
mon-school system and of all European systems as well. 

2. Beginnings in Germany 

The influence of Luther and his associates soon pro- 
duced a marked effect on the educational interests of the 
continent. In the latter half of the sixteenth century 
beginnings were made in Prussia^ for the organization 
of popular education under the supervision of the church. 
It remained for Frederick the Great, two centuries later, 
to clearly state the principles by which pubhc instruc- 
tion should be administered. A little later, or about 
1794, the Prussian code of laws (Landrecht) was adopted, 
in which the schools received complete recognition. The 
severe trials and losses of the Napoleonic Wars stirred 
Prussia and indeed all Germany to a keen realization 
of the educational needs of the people. In 1807 Ferdi- 
nand Wilham III gave utterance to the famous words: 
''The state must regain in mental force what it has lost 
in physical force." This utterance has since been the 
guiding principle not only of Prussia but of the whole 
German Empire. It was then that the state assumed 
full control of the educational system under a ''Minister 
of Worship and Public Instruction." And in 1850 Prus- 
sia was able to write into her new constitution: " Science 
and the teaching of science are free." 

3. Beginnings in the Netherlands 

It is interesting to note further how general and simul- 
taneous was the movement for the establishment of pub- 
lic schools in Europe. As early as the twelfth century 

^ For account of Prussian schools, cf. L. R. Klemm, U. S. Com. Report, 
1889-90, vol. I, pp. 455-64; also U. S. Com. Report, 1867-8 (Barnard), 
PP- 435-522. 



26 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the stronger communities, chiefly the cities, of Holland 
and Belgium established schools for the common people.^ 
These were exclusive of the various church schools. In 
the case of Holland the instruction in these schools was 
taken from the supervision of the clergy and thus became 
essentially secular. 

Universities and Latin schools were also established 
as early as the sixteenth century. Like the United 
States, the Netherlands, by the terms of their constitu- 
tion, grant entire Hberty of conscience to all religious 
denominations. In all their legislation concerning pri- 
mary instruction the Dutch have been opposed to de- 
nominational schools. Their government was the first 
of European countries, in the beginning of the nineteenth 
century, to promulgate laws for the establishment of 
state schools, viz., in 1801, 1803, and 1806. 

4. Denmark 

As early as 1721 a royal decree was issued by Fred- 
eric IV of Denmark^ regulating the organization of peo- 
ples' schools. The Reformation period produced the 
Latin schools characteristic of western Europe. Normal 
schools were first established near the close of the eight- 
eenth century. In 18 14 two decrees were issued which 
more completely organized the common-school system, 
including the country as well as the cities. These de- 
crees form the basis for the present system of education 
in Denmark. The head of the system is the University 
of Copenhagen, which exercises a powerful control over 
all educational institutions. Religion is a dominant 
element in the instruction of all the schools. 

* Cf. Miss Sophie Nussbaum, in U. S. Com. of Ed. Report, 1894-5, 
vol. I, pp. 475-542. 

2C/. F. G. French, U. S. Com. Report, 1889-90, vol. I, pp. 519-547- 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 27 

5. Norway 

In Norway the first great impetus to popular educa- 
tion came through the Reformation as early as 1536; but 
this did not result in the immediate estabHshment of a 
system of schools. The present school system is based 
on a decree issued in 1736. Religious instruction was 
the chief purpose under this decree. A more compre- 
hensive law for educational purposes was that of 1827, 
which has since been greatly modified and extended, 
especially by the law of 1889. 

6. Austria 

In Austria^ the movement for public education began 
about 1774, under Maria Theresa. But it was not until 
1848 that much of an effective nature could be accom- 
pHshed. Other enactments followed in 1861 which 
greatly affected the development of the schools. In 
1868 measures were adopted which freed all instruction 
except that of religion from the control of the church, 
and in 1869 the law defining the course of study was 
passed. This became the basis for a rapid development 
of common schools in Austria. 

7. Scotland and England 

It was probably Scotland ^ that produced the first 
compulsory school law in Europe. This was as early 
as 1494, under the reign of James IV. The law had 
reference to the grammar-schools and universities, both 
of which had previously been established. The effect 
of the Reformation was strong from the very beginning. 
In 1542 the Parliament granted the privilege of having 

* Cf. Klemm, U. S. Com. Report, 1889-90, vol. I, pp. 419-454, 

2 C/. A. T. Smith, in U. S. Com. Report, 1889-90, vol. I, pp. 187-235 



28 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the Scriptures translated into the vernacular for the use 
of all the people. 

Under the leadership of John Knox education became 
a fundamental principle of government. The acts of 
1633 and 1696 gave a very complete system of pubHc 
schools under control of the church. In 1861 and 1872 
acts were passed which gave to Scotland a civil rather 
than an ecclesiastical system of schools. The develop- 
ment of popular education in Scotland became the basis 
at once for the inspiration and emulation of England in 
her efforts toward public education. In 1870 the latter 
country succeeded in giving legal form to a system 
of common elementary schools. The Scotch system, 
on the other hand, included, also, secondary schools, 
normal schools, and universities. By reason, chiefly, 
of the peculiar relationship of church and state England 
has moved but slowly in the process of adapting her 
schools to the needs of such a great democratic people. 
Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that whenever 
there has been an extension of the suffrage, as in the 
thirties and again in the seventies of the nineteenth 
century, Parliament has always sought to make a cor- 
respondingly Hberal provision for pubHc education. 

8. France 

The French ^ system of pubHc instruction owes its 
existence directly to the influence of the Revolution and 
Napoleon, on the one hand, and to the disasters of the 
Franco-Prussian War on the other. The establishment 
of the Imperial University in 1808 was the first impor- 
tant step. By this means secondary and higher educa- 
tion were organized throughout the communes. It was 
Guizot's law of 1833, however, which was essentially 

1 CJ. A. T. Smith, in U. S. Com. Report, 1890-1, vol. I, pp. ioa-120. 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 29 

the first charter of primary education in France. From 
1872, under the ministry of M. Ferry, until the present 
time popular education of a secular character has made 
most rapid progress in that country. 

9. Simultaneous Development of Public Education 

Thus out of those combined forces which gave to Eu- 
rope the Renaissance there grew, with the progress of 
enhghtenment and of commerce, a system of universal 
education among the nations of the Western world. The 
seeds of learning fostered by the church and by the 
Greek scholars of the Eastern Empire thus were gradu- 
ally disseminated. Out of the mingling of the old learn- 
ing with the forces and human interests of a new en- 
vironment came that larger conception of a knowledge 
of letters as a boon to all classes and as a powerful 
means to a greater degree of social well-being. 

So it happened that simultaneously throughout Europe 
and the American colonies there appeared the first ex- 
pression of the idea of popular education. Practically 
in the space of a century of time there appeared, as a 
direct result of the Reformation, statutes and edicts 
estabhshing schools for the people in Scotland, Holland, 
Norway, Prussia, and Massachusetts; while only a httle 
more extension of time gives us also the popular schools 
of Austria, Denmark, Switzerland — all of Europe except 
the Latin states, the Turkish domain, and Russia. 

10. Description of the Prussian System as a Type 

Returning to Prussia, we may take her schools as typ- 
ical of advanced European education and as a basis for 
a little closer comparison, in detail, with the develop- 
ment of our own system of administering education. 
From the time when Humboldt was made the first Min- 



30 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

ister of Public Instruction, Prussia has had an efficient 
scheme for the administration of pubHc education. This 
includes common schools for the masses, trade schools, 
secondary schools, normal schools, and universities. 
Briefly, the plan of administration is as follows: The 
centre of the system of education in a German state or 
kingdom is in the office of the minister of ecclesiastical, 
educational, and medical affairs. This officer is a mem- 
ber of the King's cabinet, but his tenure is at the will 
of the Emperor. He has general direction and super- 
vision of all educational institutions of the kingdom, in- 
cluding all examinations; the dispensing of school moneys, 
the fixing of salaries and the pensioning of teachers; the 
ratification of courses of study, and the regulating of pri- 
vate schools. He further represents the school interests 
in the parliament of his state and lays plans for the 
financial support of the school. In his hands is the ap- 
pointment of councillors, members of provincial boards, 
and other school officials, excepting such as receive their 
appointment directly from the Emperor. The kingdom 
is divided into provinces, each having a president and 
cabinet; in each cabinet is a provincial school councillor; 
through these school councillors of the provinces the 
minister communicates with the lower authorities. In 
each province there is also a school board (Schul-kolle- 
gium) of which the provincial councillor is head. With 
him are associated several others, all educational experts. 
These boards have chiefly the oversight of secondary 
schools. Each province is again divided into subdivi- 
sions (Regierungen) like large counties; each of these 
governmental districts also has its president and coun- 
cillors, including a school councillor; these school coun- 
cillors act as examiners and supervisors of their entire 
districts with special oversight of the common schools. 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 31 

Each district is divided into circuits (Kreise) correspond- 
ing to our townships. The cities constitute circuits by 
themselves, and then there are the country circuits. In 
the city the burgomaster stands at the head and a com- 
mittee of three or five members of the city council act 
as the local school board. At the head of the country 
circuit is the Landrath, and three or five leading citizens 
are appointed to act as a school board. The royal 
secondary schools are under the direct care of boards of 
trustees. These various boards have about the same 
powers and duties as our city school boards, except that 
the courses of study are those prescribed by the central 
government through the ofhce of the minister. 

Generally speaking, the local authorities nominate the 
teacher, subject to approval by the higher authorities. 
Little expert supervision is called for. The teachers are 
approved by the government, after receiving the pre- 
scribed training, and so are considered competent to di- 
rect the work of their schools in accordance with the 
prescribed courses. A general supervision is, however, 
exercised by the state through the provincial and dis- 
trict councillors. Local supervision is exercised by the 
mayor and clergymen or by community school boards 
or professional inspectors appointed by them. 

The normal schools and universities are under the 
direct control of the state and supported directly by it. 
In this way the state is able to exercise direct supervi- 
sion of the training of teachers and educational experts 
who are to direct the work of instruction in all pubHc 
educational institutions. It is in this manner, chiefly, 
that the state controls the educational situation. 

The public schools of Prussia are estabKshed and main- 
tained partly by the state and partly by communi- 
ties. In this respect the state leaves the initiative to 



32 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

communities, especially in establishing common or folk 
schools (Volksschulen). Usually the community raises 
about three fourths of the fund necessary for mainte- 
nance. The other one fourth comes directly from the 
state and from the income on certain permanent educa- 
tional funds. In the matter of higher education the 
state bears about three eighths of the cost in the case of 
scientific, technical, and industrial secondary schools, 
while for the classical schools of this grade the state's 
share is nearly seven tenths. 

II. Secularization Largely the Result of a Religious 
Movement 

The administrative plans of other countries mentioned 
above will be found to vary chiefly as influenced by pe- 
cuHar traditional institutions and methods. Of all it 
may truly be said that the traditions which grew up 
under the administration of education by the church 
were most powerful in determining both the types of 
schools to be organized and the kind of instruction to 
be given. Even yet this influence is seen to be profound 
both in Europe and America. Strangely enough, it was 
a religious movement more than anything else which 
brought about the secularization of education; for it 
was through the influence of the Reformation, as we have 
seen, that the vernacular became the medium of instruc- 
tion in all countries, the sole purpose of which was to 
make at least the rudiments of education the common 
possession of all the people. 

12. Beginnings in New England 

It was this influence that led the colonists of Massa- 
chusetts, twenty-two years after the landing at Plym- 
outh Rock, to enact the first law leading to the estab- 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 33 

Hshment of schools. This was the order of the General 
Court of Elections, made in 1642/ and which provided: 
(i) That the men chosen to look after the prudential 
affairs should have the care of children whose parents 
neglected their education. (2) To this end they were 
empowered to take account of all children, to ascertain 
concerning their calling and employment and *'of their 
abihty to read and understand the principles of religion 
and the capital laws of the country." (3) To appren- 
tice *'the children of those not able to employ and bring 
them up." (4) To look after their general conduct. 
(5) They were also to provide materials, tools, and im- 
plements for the work of such children as were under 
their care. In this way it was expected to provide that 
no children should grow up as ilHterates or as unable to 
follow some useful occupation. The act of the General 
Court of 1647 l^i<i the foundation for all subsequent 
legislation in the colony. As has been seen in a pre- 
vious chapter, these two acts embodied practically all 
the essential principles of a free-school system. 

Six years previous to the first act in regard to elemen- 
tary instruction, the General Court of Massachusetts 
had taken steps toward providing collegiate education 
through the estabhshment of Harvard College. 

In 16502 Connecticut adopted practically the same 
provisions in regard to elementary schools as those 
adopted by the Massachusetts General Court in 1647. 
Connecticut also agreed to support the college at Cam- 
bridge. Later provisions were made from time to time 
to perfect the schools of the colony, and also for the 
establishment of a college. Yale College, at New Haven, 

^ See Mass. Col. Record, II, 8-9. 

2 See Clews, "Educational Legislation and Administration of the Colo- 
nial Government," pp. 72-163. 



34 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

was the result, established by act of the colonial legisla- 
ture in October, 1701. 

New Hampshire,^ through her legislature, first made 
provision for public education in 1693. This primary 
enactment was supported and perfected by subsequent 
acts, especially those of 17 19 and 1721. Through the 
efforts of Governor Wentworth a royal charter was ob- 
tained in 1769 establishing Dartmouth College at Han- 
over. 

13. Pennsylvania 

The charter by which Charles II made William Penn 
proprietor of the territory extending a distance of five 
degrees west of the Delaware River included among its 
provisions a committee of the Provincial Council to 
have charge of manners, education and arts.^ Immedi- 
ately after his arrival in his province Penn called a pro- 
vincial assembly. On the second meeting of this as- 
sembly, March, 1683, provision was made for the in- 
struction of all children in reading and writing and 
in ''some useful trade or skill." These schools, however, 
seem to have been private church schools, and were not 
open as free schools to children of other rehgious faith 
than that of the Quakers. 

By the amended constitution of 1790 the following 
provision was made: "The legislature shall, as soon as 
conveniently may be, provide by law for the establish- 
ment of schools throughout the State, in such manner 
that the poor may be taught gratis." Not until 1831, 
however, was there established a free common-school 
system in Pennsylvania. 

^ See Clews, op. cit., pp. 164-184. 

2 See Clews, pp. 279-312. See also U. S. Com. Report, 1876, pp. 
33T--334- 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 35 

14. New York and New Jersey- 
Schools were established by the Dutch in New York^ 
as early as 1633. Provision was made for one school 
in each parish. These schools were continued for about 
a century after the English occupation. The first Eng- 
hsh schools were estabhshed in the early part of the 
eighteenth century. King's College, the beginning of 
what is now Columbia University, was chartered in 
1754. In 1789 two lots in each township were set apart 
to be surveyed ''for gospel and school purposes." In 
1795 an act was passed appropriating fifty thousand 
dollars annually for five years to encourage the estabhsh- 
ment of schools in cities and towns of the State. In 
these schools the children were to be taught ''English 
grammar, arithmetic, mathematics, and such other 
branches of knowledge as are most necessary to com- 
plete a good Enghsh education." Other arrangements 
were made whereby a very good system of schools for 
that time might be administered. But the act of 1795 
expired by Hmitation in 1800, and no permanent re- 
newal of organized schools was accomphshed until 181 2. 
In New Jersey the first schools were "rate schools" 
estabhshed under the jurisdiction of the Friends in 1693. 
Not until 181 6 did the State make any provision for free 
schools. 

15. Delaware and Maryland 

The warring interests of different national types in 
Delaware effectually prevented the estabhshment of any 
system of people's schools during the colonial period. 

1 See U. S. Com. Report, 1876-77, pp. 273-276. Also W. H. Kirk- 
patrick, "The Dutch Schools of New Netherland and Colonial New 
York," U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1912, no. 12, 



36 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

So also the peculiar conditions of settlement, and the 
failure of the English type of grammar-schools to find 
subsistence, made Maryland barren, as a colony, of any 
notable progress in public education. 

1 6. Virginia 

It was as late as 1797 before Virginia was able to 
enact a law for the establishment of public schools. 
Previous to this time the wealthier classes provided for 
the education of their children chiefly by employing 
tutors in their homes. It was through the influence of 
Jefferson and Wythe, who framed the measure, that the 
first free-school legislation was secured for Virginia. 

17. The Carolinas and Georgia 

Free schools were estabhshed in North CaroHna^ in 
1749. Practically all of the better influences found in 
New England and the middle colonies were represented 
in the character of the settlers of North Carolina. Here 
were Scotch, Irish, Enghsh, Dutch, and German. The 
chief difference seems to have been in the fact that the 
homogeneity of the population of the colonies of New 
England was wanting here. Still the colony moved for- 
ward educationally in a most remarkable way. The 
eighteenth century saw the estabhshment not only of 
the free elementary schools, but also of academies and 
the University of North Carolina. The first State con- 
stitution, adopted in December, 1776, contains these 
memorable words: ''A school or schools shall be estab- 
lished by the Legislature for the convenient instruction 
of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by the 
pubHc, as may enable them to instruct at low prices; 

^ See C. L. Smith, "History of Education in North Carolina," Circ. 
of Inf., no. 2, 1888, U. S. Bureau of Education. 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 37 

and all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and pro- 
moted in one or more universities." 

Under the direction of the English church free schools 
were estabhshed in South Carolina^ as early as 171 2. 
The parish system was customary, and all classes were 
given the advantages of elementary education. In many 
cases slaves were included among those who shared these 
privileges. The organization of academies followed that 
of the parish schools, and a number of colleges also de- 
veloped in response to the demand for higher education. 
In the constitution and character of its local government 
this colony approached the colonies of New England 
and Virginia. 

Previous to the Revolutionary War Georgia had no 
plan for pubHc education, and so calls for no considera- 
tion in this connection. 

18. Common Origin and Character in Europe and 
America 

Thus, while we find education in some form provided 
for in all the colonies, yet it remains true that the real 
founding of the pubhc free schools of the United States 
was by the people of Massachusetts. As shown pre- 
viously ,2 these early schools were based on principles 
which have become fundamental to our larger school 
system. 

If we now compare the general conditions under which 
popular schools were estabhshed in Europe and America, 
the striking thing that appears to us is the common 
origin of the idea and the similarity in the character of 
the schools. All were estabhshed primarily for the gen- 

1 See B. James Ramage in Johns Hopkins Studies, vol. I, no. 12, ''Local 
Government and Free Schools in South Carolina." 

2 Chap. II. 



38 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

eral enlightenment of the people in regard to.rehgious 
teachings, largely as a result of the Reformation; and 
nearly all passed gradually from the rehgious to the secu- 
lar form as the needs of the entire social group, aside 
from considerations purely religious, became more evi- 
dent. 

Again, in the general character and purpose of pubHc 
education throughout all the countries under considera- 
tion we find that two ideas were emphasized about 
equally as determining the aims and purposes of these 
"people's schools": the need of general intelligence on 
the part of citizens of all classes, and the need of care- 
ful training for some industrial pursuit. 

19. Some Striking Differences 

There were certain striking differences between Eu- 
rope and the American colonies. The traditional hold of 
ecclesiasticism on education was much stronger in the 
older estabhshed order of things in Europe. Social strat- 
ification and the existence of caste affected the European 
situation, but were largely absent in the colonies. The 
government of the colonies, especially New England, 
was characteristically republican in form from the begin- 
ning. With these differences, due to traditional in- 
fluences chiefly, we must put one characteristic which all 
the countries we have been considering held in common : 
they were all essentially democratic. Whatever differ- 
ences have developed, therefore, in their various indi- 
vidual schemes of education must be considered as due 
to the influence of traditions concerning the social order- 
ing of things, either in industries, religion, or govern- 
ment, or to a relative freedom from such traditions, as 
in the case of the colonies. 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 39 

20. The United States as Type for this Study 

The title of this volume suggests a broad treatment of 
the subject, one which might be considered as disregard- 
ing national limitations. After such a survey of the 
field as has just been given, however, it seems evident 
that the more recently organized national groups present 
features more nearly ideal for the purposes of this dis- 
cussion. This would seem sufficient reason of itself, re- 
gardless of the one most powerful incentive of patri- 
otic interest, why this volume should be devoted to a 
consideration of the United States as a field for the evo- 
lution of an ideal scheme for the administration of edu- 
cation by a democracy. 

21. European Influence Upon America 

We have seen that a number of countries were inter- 
ested at the same time in the growth of the idea of free 
popular education. It was inevitable that they should 
have influenced each other at this time, and that in the 
groping for ways and means of accomplishing this radi- 
cal and stupendously daring enterprise, no opportunity 
should have been lost for the exchange of views and 
experiences. It would be particularly the case in the 
New World that many Europeans should be profoundly 
interested in the experiment which was evolving out of 
the new life of the American colonies. The revolution- 
ary period is thus found to be rich in evidences that the 
leaders of this country were kept fully alive to the edu- 
cational developments going on in Europe. 

England's influence had come through the traditions 
brought by the colonists from the mother country. So 
it was the logical thing that the grammar-school, as the 
means of preparing youth for college, and the college 



40 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

itself, as the training place for the favored few who were 
to follow the professions of theology, law, or other liter- 
ary pursuits, should have been patterned after the Eng- 
lish schools of the same grades. Indeed, we are told 
that no inconsiderable number of New England colo- 
nists were college trained, and that the proportionate 
number of graduates of Oxford and Cambridge was fully 
equal to that of the mother country. But here EngHsh 
influence stops. There is nothing from the British Isles, 
unless, possibly, from Scotland, which could in any way 
account for that new and rapid development which char- 
acterized the colonial type of education, especially in 
New England. 

Every school child is famihar with those pecuHar con- 
ditions in regard to the government of the Enghsh col- 
onies which so rapidly developed self-reliance and a spirit 
of independence among them. It seems probable enough 
that Douglass CampbelF has good ground for his behef 
in the Dutch ancestry of the New England common 
school. We can hardly beheve that the stay of the 
Pilgrims at Leyden should have been entirely without 
results in this respect when we consider the intense activ- 
ity of the Netherlanders at that time and the great prog- 
ress they had achieved in the development of such schools 
among themselves. We may well put with this the in- 
fluence of the Dutch in New York, Pennsylvania, and 
Delaware through the schools estabhshed by them. 
John Locke is usually considered as representing the in- 
fluence of the Enghsh upon the educational ideals of 
the colonists. It is possible, however, that even in his 
case there is an element of Dutch influence on account 
of his stay as an exile in Holland. This seems all the 

1 In his "The Puritan in Holland, England, and America," vol. II, 
PP- 338-342. 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 41 

more probable if we connect with this the other fact of 
his famiHarity with the work of Comenius. 

The poHtical experience of the Netherlands had cer- 
tainly been such as to put these people in full sympathy 
with the American struggle for independence. From 
the time when a cordial welcome was extended to the 
fugitive band of Pilgrims from England until the time 
of our Civil War the Dutch people have ever evinced a 
fraternal interest in the welfare of the American Re- 
pubHc. 

But it was during the Revolutionary period, when lead- 
ing men of the colonies first began to face the possibil- 
ity of independence and the consequent responsibilities 
in the organization of a new government suited to the 
character and ideals of a Hberty-loving people, that the 
interest in popular education as a state function began 
to intensify. Men like Milton and Locke had already 
left their impress upon the minds of those to whom 
was to come the business of framing this new govern- 
ment. Aside from this, England's influence on the evo- 
lution of our educational system was at an end. 

It was natural that in this crisis the colonies should 
be drawn to France, and that France should take a 
corresponding interest in the development of a new na- 
tion in a new world. The sending of Adams, Jefferson, 
and FrankHn as a commission to the French Govern- 
ment bore other fruits than those of their diplomacy. 
Adams himself tells us^ that it was largely through this 
influence by contact with Frenchmen that he was led 
to promote the estabhshment of the Boston Academy of 
Arts and Sciences; and that the same influence was a 

^ See "Life and Works of John Adams," edited by Charles Francis 
Adams, vol. IV, pp. 257-260. (Referred to by Hinsdale, U. S. Com. 
Report, 1892-3, vol. II, p. 13 16.) 



42 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

strong factor in the preparation of that part of the 
constitution of Massachusetts which marks the first 
legal establishment of free public schools in the United 
States. Thus in the act which made John Adams the 
father of our pubHc-school system we see the influence 
of France; for it was he who incorporated this system 
into the fundamental law of the State which, as a 
colony, first gave it origin. 

Through Jefferson French influence is seen in his plans 
for the organization of the University of Virginia. For 
while Jefferson, in accomphshing this task, sought ideas 
from all sources, yet the evidence seems clear that among 
all these influences that of the French scholars with whom 
he came in contact stands first. When we consider this 
in connection with Jefferson's interest in an educational 
system for his State, and later the influences which 
marked the establishment of the University of Michi- 
gan, we may readily comprehend something of the influ- 
ence France has had upon the organization of our higher 
institutions of learning. Nor should we omit New York, 
especially in the peculiar organization of its university, 
which bears unmistakable evidences of the influence of 
Napoleon's idea of a university as estabUshed under his 
control of affairs in France. 

Many French writers and travellers, as well as the 
French patriots who aided directly in the American 
Revolution through their writings and through personal 
contact with American leaders, exercised a profound in- 
fluence upon the shaping of the new government and 
the ordering of its fundamental institutions. Taken all 
together the sum total of this influence which came to 
our educational system through the French people is 
large and important. It is all the more interesting as 
representing the ideals of the leaders in thought among 



EVOLUTION OF FREE COMMON SCHOOLS 43 

another great liberty-loving people whose traditional in- 
fluences have restrained them, until quite recently, from 
any considerable advance toward realizing these ideals 
for themselves. 

Among the earlier German influences affecting educa- 
tion in this country, and especially the order of its es- 
tablishment as a system, are those of Comenius,^ Pes- 
talozzi, and Fellenberg. These influences have come to 
us partly through published writings on education, but 
more particularly by direct contact through study in 
German universities, especially at Gottingen, Halle, and 
Berlin. This influence has been very far-reaching and 
profound, and still continues so to the present day. 
The earher influence grew out of the necessity, on the 
part of American youth who sought higher training, of 
making use of the great universities above referred to. 
This again was greatly augmented through the influence 
exerted by the report to the French Government, in 
1837, of M. Victor Cousin on "PubHc Instruction in 
Prussia." 

Thus, by the commingling of thought, the exchange of 
ideals and experiences among nations whose leading 
spirits are represented by men like Luther, Milton, Locke, 
Comenius, Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Franklin, Adams, Jef- 
ferson — all, in turn, tested and tempered by the philos- 
ophy of Aristotle, Plato, and Fichte — there came that 
conception of education as an essential prerequisite to a 
successful democracy that led to the establishment of 
free schools in the United States. 

^ Inseparably bound up, in this instance, with the Dutch influence. 



PART TWO 

SOCIETY'S PART IN THE ADMINISTRA- 
TION OF EDUCATION 

CHAPTER IV 

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS: LAWS, AND UNITS 
OF CONTROL 

We may now proceed to consider the steps taken in 
the estabHshment of schools in this country after the 
adoption of the federal constitution. As we have already 
seen/ no provision was made in that document for the 
organ.ization of education. By common consent this 
function was permitted to pass to the States. We have 
found that when the colonies advanced to statehood, 
immediately after the Declaration of Independence, by 
the adoption of constitutions, several of them embodied 
in their fundamental laws a provision for schools. There 
were six of these, and among the first, as already cited,- 
was North Carolina. By reason of the fulness of state- 
ment embodied in her constitution, Massachusetts ranks 
first in New England and readily became a pattern not 
only for the rest of New England but for many of the 
States subsequently erected out of the vast Northwest 
Territory. The precedent estabhshed by North Caro- 
lina also became influential, similarly, as populations 
developed westward from the Southern colonies. 

1 Chap. II. 2 See p. 36. 

44 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 45 

I. Significance of Constitutional Treatment of 
Education 

The chief significance of the treatment given to edu- 
cation in the constitutional provisions of the States lies 
in the fact that this instrument is the one in which the 
people undertake, through their representatives, to ex- 
press their ideals in regard to government and the in- 
stitutions fundamental to its maintenance. In other 
words, it is a referendum vote; and whatever is most 
vital, as felt by the people, to the carrying into effect 
of the government thus set up, we naturally expect to 
find included in such a document. But the colonies 
were new at the business of constitution framing; and 
with no very elaborate type from which to copy, there 
was naturally great variety in the results. This varia- 
tion was evident enough as regards educational provi- 
sions which seven of the original colonies omitted en- 
tirely. Subsequently, however, as they were reminded 
of this omission, especially by the grant of school lands 
by Congress in 1789, these States revised their constitu- 
tions, so that now the fundamental law of all the States 
recognizes, in some way, the necessity and importance 
of schools. 

2. Nature and Extent of Such Legislation 

It was in this manner that the first important legaliz- 
ing acts in the estabhshment of school administration 
in the United States came about. Now thirty-three of 
the States specifically require that the legislature shall 
establish a system of free schools offering uniform and 
general educational advantages. Those States not spe- 
cifically commanding such establishment do, by impli- 
cation, indicate such a course to be the will and pur- 



46 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

pose of the people. Nor do the States confine the 
proposed plan of popular education to the teaching of 
the rudiments in elementary schools. In nearly every 
case provision is also made for higher schools, for normal 
schools, and for college and university training, with 
frequent emphasis on training in agriculture and the 
mechanic arts. 

In some of the States, notably of the North Central 
and Pacific groups, the constitutions undertake to define 
rather fully the scope of the educational system to be 
set up. Indiana, for instance, directs that the General 
Assembly shall provide for a "general system of educa- 
tion ascending in regular gradation from township schools 
to State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis and 
open to all." Here "township schools" indicate the 
prevalence of the township unit of organization of schools. 
California (1879) very explicitly defines the school system 
as including "primary and grammar schools, and such 
high schools, evening schools, normal schools, and tech- 
nical schools as may be estabhshed by the Legislature, 
or by municipal and district authority." In North Da- 
kota the provision is for a system of free schools "begin- 
ning with the primary and extending through all grades 
up to and including the normal and collegiate courses." 
This State also emphasizes moral education. The pro- 
vision of the constitution of Utah with regard to the 
kinds of schools to be established is perhaps the most 
explicit of all. It defines the system of education for 
that State as including "kindergarten schools, common 
schools consisting of primary and grammar grades; high 
schools; an agricultural college, a university, and such 
other schools as the Legislature may establish." 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 47 

3. Appearance of Local Influences 

Some of the differences noticeable in State constitu- 
tions are readily seen to be the result of local influences. 
For instance, eight of the Southern States prescribe sep- 
arate schools for whites and blacks. Going quite to the 
opposite extreme in this respect are Wyoming and Wash- 
ington. The former forbids distinctions due to ''race, 
sex, or color," while the latter declares that there shall 
be no distinction made ''on account of race, color, caste, 
or sex." 

The use of funds for denominational or sectarian 
schools is constitutionally prohibited by some States; 
Nevada prohibits sectarian instruction in public schools; 
Utah forbids the requirement of any "religious or par- 
tisan quahfications of teachers or pupils"; while Mis- 
sissippi, on the other hand, forbids the exclusion of the 
Bible from the schools. The State of New York has 
gone even so far in practice as to subsidize certain 
church schools under regulations prescribed by the State. 

Both Michigan and Georgia require that the instruc- 
tion in free elementary schools be in the English language. 

4. Other Notable Provisions in State Constitutions 

Compulsory attendance laws are prescribed or per- 
mitted by South Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Texas, 
Colorado, Idaho, and Oklahoma; while Massachusetts, 
Connecticut, Minnesota, and Missouri demand an edu- 
cational qualification of electors. Most of the States 
make the school age a matter of constitutional legislation. 

All State constitutions provide for the proper care and 
sale of school lands and for the investment and conser- 
vation of school funds. In the matter of taxation there 
is considerable variation. The prevailing plan is to 



48 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

combine State, county, township, and district systems 
of taxation for the support of the common schools. In 
a few States taxation is limited almost entirely to the 
State. In others the county system seems to dominate. 
In a few cases, again, a per-capita tax is called for. 
Usually the State provides for all higher institutions, 
while high schools are scarcely mentioned among con- 
stitutional provisions. 

In the matter of providing for officers of administra- 
tion. State supervision is expressly mentioned in most 
constitutions. Not quite so commonly are State boards 
constituted; while in a few cases county supervision is 
authorized. 

5. Influence of Historical Movements Noted 

As one reads the constitutions^ of some of the States, 
as they have been revised from time to time, there are 
seen marked evidences of the influence of historical 
movements in this country. The first and perhaps the 
most remarkable evidence of this kind is seen in the 
constitution of Massachusetts. Here are concentrated 
the ideals of the Pilgrims as they were evolved out of 
their colonial experiences. As we shall further note later 
on, these ideals have had a powerful influence upon State 
school systems throughout the North and West. Next 
to this should be considered the peculiar type of or- 
ganization established in the Southern colonies. Out of 
the peculiar system of landholding established in those 
colonies we see particularly the development of the 
county unit of control which has prevailed until now. 
While this does not now appear so plainly in the con- 
stitutions of the States erected out of these Southern 

^ For a summary of constitutional provisions regarding education 
down to 1894, see U. S. Com. Report, 1892-3, vol. II, pp. 1312-1414. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 49 

colonies, yet it was there essentially from the beginning 
although, perhaps, not directly expressed in relation to 
education. 

The first real innovation came with the federal land 
grants having their inception in the Ordinance of 1787. 
This is readily seen in the emphasis given in subsequent 
constitutions of new States erected out of the North- 
west Territory and later out of the Louisiana Purchase, 
the Mexican lands', and Texas. These provisions all 
refer especially to methods of caring for the school lands 
and the revenues derived therefrom. 

The results of the Civil War and of the reconstruction 
period on the South are especially noticeable. South 
Carolina, for instance, in the constitution of 1868, says 
that ''all the public schools, colleges, and universities 
of the State, supported in whole or part by the public 
funds, shall be free and open to all the children and 
youths of the State, without regard to race or color." 
It is needless to say that this could not long be enforced. 
In the constitution of that State, adopted in 1895, we 
read: ''Separate schools shall be provided for children 
of the white and colored races, and no child of either 
race shall ever be permitted to attend a school provided 
for children of the other race." 

6. Tendency Toward Centralized Control 

But perhaps the most interesting and important of 
these historical influences is seen in the reaction which 
appears from the strongly decentralized type of educa- 
tional administration which characterized the earlier 
constitutions toward a more strongly centralized con- 
trol of schools. In the constitutions of those States of 
the Central West which were admitted in the first quarter 
or half of the nineteenth century the prevailing type of 



50 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

administrative organization is strongly decentralized. 
On the other hand, Virginia, the home of Jefferson, in its 
constitution enacted in 1869, and again still more em- 
phatically in the constitution of 1902 ^ provides for 
strong centralized control in matters of education. In- 
diana, Minnesota, and Cahfornia have manifested a sim- 
ilar reactionary tendency toward centralized control; 
while New York has gone to the extreme, practically, 
of what would seem to be feasible to a republican State. 

7. Constitutions Mark Evolution of Conception of 
Democracy 

Thus, in a positive though often fragmentary or in- 
complete way, the States have made the estabhshment 
of schools and the setting up of educational systems a 
part of their fundamental lawB. And here again do we 
find in the revisions of constitutions, which in some of 
the States have been frequent, another evidence of the 
evolution, in the minds of the people, of a truer con- 
ception of democracy and its needs. It would be easy 
to construct, out of these various State documents, by 
piecing together educational provisions selected from 
them, a ''model constitution" aflfecting the organiza- 
tion and administration of schools; but such an instru- 
ment would have little meaning or value. Gradually 
the people are getting a clearer vision of what is re- 
quired, and, if not through their constitutional conven- 
tions, then by means of legislative enactment, they are 
moulding and perfecting the mechanism of this greatest 
of all instruments in the hands of an enlightened popu- 
lar government. 

^ See the present constitution of Virginia. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 51 

8. Legislatures Have Supplemented Constitutional 
Provisions 

It frequently happens that in a State where little 
of a definite nature is said in the constitution in regard 
to education there v^ill be found to exist one of the most 
complete systems of all for which provision has been 
made by the legislature, frequently through the leader- 
ship of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction 
or the State Board of Education. It is this law-created 
mechanism which is the basis for the administration of 
education. Only upon the clear and specific sanctions 
thus given by society can there be any effective pro- 
cedure in an enterprise involving such cost and so many 
varying interests as does a system of public schools. 

Speaking in the abstract, it may be considered cause 
for regret that all the States, and even the nation, have 
not embodied in the supreme law a clear and definite 
statement of the chief things to be done in the interests 
of free popular education. It still remains true, how- 
ever, that both in these primary enactments and in the 
body of laws governing schools there are strong and 
cheering evidences of a steady forward movement in the 
evolution of this social institution and its adjustment 
to the conditions under which it must operate. 

Having thus prepared ourselves, through this brief 
historical survey, for a more sympathetic perception 
and understanding of the ideals and purposes that have 
been operative until now in the estabHshment of our 
educational system, let us proceed to analyze more mi- 
nutely this administrative structure as it appears in the 
legislative acts, both general and specific, by means of 
which it has been reared. 



52 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

9. Units of Control Under Religious Influences 

From our earliest knowledge of the Germanic races, 
or of the history of any race, for that matter, a funda- 
mental aspect of social control has appeared in the unit 
of territory as supporting a given or possible population 
over which that control may extend. So, when it comes 
to the setting up of various legal sanctions in regard to 
the dissemination of education among a people, the first 
problem to consider is that of educational units of ter- 
ritory. The early connection of education with religion, 
and its dependence upon the church for the administra- 
tive function, naturally had much to do with the order 
of division into units of administration. The congre- 
gation was the group to which the individual church 
ministered, and the parish was its territory. Naturally, 
the administration of education would be similarly lim- 
ited. Likewise when the schools passed to the secular 
form the units of territory which served for the admin- 
istering of law and of justice also formed the basis for 
limiting the territorial extent of the service rendered by 
a single school. 

In most European countries we have seen that the 
religious and secular functions of the school have, in 
many cases, remained parallel and co-operative in their 
administration. In the colonies this was also true at 
first; but later, with complete secularization of educa- 
tion, came a change. The strong decentralizing influ- 
ences at work at the close of the eighteenth and begin- 
ning of the nineteenth centuries had a marked effect on 
the organization of the schools. It was then that the 
idea of the school district as the local administrative unit 
became estabUshed in our system. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 53 

10. Development of City Units 

Another factor which had to do with the determina- 
tion of administrative units in education was the devel- 
opment of popular education in cities. We have found 
that very early in the history of European schools this 
factor became apparent as cities began to insist on a 
form of education suited to the demands of commercial 
and other industries rapidly developing in these centres 
of population. As a result, the city and town have 
played a very important part in determining their own 
types of organization in matters educational. 

II. Principles Involved 

In all of this the primary principle involved has been 
the generally convenient and equitable limit of service 
and attendance for the individual school centre. Out 
of this, as a fundamental cause, other conditions as to 
territorial units have been gradually evolved. The idea 
of such a limitation of service had developed long before 
in connection with other interests. It was the simple 
logic of social development that this idea should be 
transferred in the case of the newer institution. 

Another principle involved in the establishment of 
definite territorial units, and one corollary to that of 
service, is suggested by Massachusetts in the ordinance 
of 1647 ii^ which it is said of those who are set aside to 
teach that their ^^ wages shall he paid either by the par- 
ents or masters of such children {of the township), or by 
the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the 
major part of those that order the prudentials of the 
town shall appoint.' ' Thus was introduced the prin- 
ciple of public maintenance *'by the inhabitants in gen- 
eral" of the township, this being the district to which 



54 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the school was then expected to minister. The idea 
that general intelligence was a direct gain to the whole 
social group, and well worth paying for as a common 
and indispensable service, had not yet developed fully 
in the minds of the colonists. But the poHcy thus set 
up has prevailed; and the chief burden of maintenance 
of common schools throughout the Northern States has 
remained with the local district or township unit until 
now. 

This principle and the policy which has thus become 
traditional present one of the largest problems, from 
society's standpoint, in the administration of education. 
A Httle further on a fuller consideration will be given to 
this problem of maintenance of the educational system. 

A third principle should also be mentioned here as 
having great significance in determining the chief unit 
of administrative control in education. This principle 
did not become strongly apparent until Revolutionary 
times, and has since been the subject of much debate, 
and especially in recent years. This is the principle of 
popular participation in the management as well as in 
the maintenance of the common schools. We have re- 
ferred to the decentralizing movement observable in 
school legislation.^ This is one of the manifestations, 
in the concrete, of the popular idea of democracy. 
There is in this something of the idea of Horace Mann 
when he said: ^'The education of the whole people, in 
a republican government, can never be obtained without 
the consent of the whole people." ^ Yet Horace Mann 
himself denounced the idea of local control by districts 
as wasteful and inefficient. We are coming, as a people, 
to understand that the stability and efhciency of repub- 
lican institutions must depend more largely upon powers 

^ See p. 49. 2 Quoted on p. 18. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 55 

delegated and at the same time guarded by explicit con- 
stitutional and legislative limitations. The participa- 
tion of the people is not to be less but different. It is 
to be that of a people grown intelligent enough to think 
clearly as to the relation of the men selected as their 
representatives to the principles and laws for which all 
the people stand and which embody those sanctions 
essential to the healthful operation and growth of insti- 
tutions truly democratic. We are coming to see more 
and more that the closely related personal interests of 
a small local group will not admit of the judicial atti- 
tude of mind on the part of those in authority so fun- 
damentally essential to successful and efficient adminis- 
tration of any body of laws. 



y 



12. Reasons for Tendency Toward Centralized 
Control 



Thus considered, we may yet come to realize that the 
participation of all the people, in the sense that the 
dominant thought of all the people shall become effec- 
tive, may be just as truly and more certainly secured 
through wise delegation of authority to experts than 
through continuous direct control by means of the direct 
election of local boards of control. One of the interest- 
ing manifestations of this idea is seen in the movement 
for the commission form of government in cities. 

From what has already been said about the genesis 
of territorial units in educational administration it be- 
comes evident that development of control in this re- 
spect has been from the local toward the general in this 
country; and this in spite of the fact that educational 
ideals have usually been passed down in just the oppo- 
site way. In our consideration of administrative con- 
trol we shall follow the order of the historical evolution 



56 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

of units and begin with the district. At first the dis- 
trict unit in this country was either the parish, the 
county, or the town. As population grew and schools 
multiplied the parish or town or county came to have 
several schools. These communities where schools were 
established were at first more or less isolated groups in 
the larger units. This fact, together with the tendency 
toward local control to which we have already referred, 
led to the division of parish or town or county into 
districts centring about the schools outside of the cities. 
Even as cities grew, in some cases, the district idea pre- 
vailed either wholly or in part. Where the prevalence 
was complete entirely separate districts were organized 
about distinct school centres. In other cities the divi- 
sion held only in part, resulting in ''ward" schools and 
frequently in a board made up of "ward" representa- 
tives. In still other instances the entire city is consid- 
ered the district containing many schools open, under 
certain restrictions, to the choice of the people.^ 

13. Prevalence of Local District Control 

The principle involved in district control, whether the 
district be large or small, is that the school is to be an 
institution that is local in both government and main- 
tenance.2 The idea is a very popular one. People may 
have their own school as they want it. They provide 
their own grounds and building, fix the programme of 

^ Oakland, Cal., is an interesting illustration. Here pupils go to the 
school of their preference. But when a school is full the pupils farthest 
away from the school must seek admittance at the next best school of 
their choice where there is still room for them. This plan relieves the 
board and superintendent of all responsibility as to transfers on account 
of dissatisfaction with a school. 

2 Not true in cases of cities, although the idea sometimes remains in 
the form of local or district representation on the city board. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 57 

studies, employ the teachers — all with the idea in view 
of trying to satisfy their own ideals of what a school 
should be. The plan throughout the States in this 
country shows a striking similarity of practice. There 
is a local board, ordinarily of three trustees or directors, 
who levy taxes, build schoolhouses, furnish supplies, 
employ teachers, select or approve text-books, and de- 
termine the course of instruction and rules governing 
the school. In some of the States these powers and 
duties are modified, to a greater or less degree, by 
authority reserved by law to officers of the township, 
county, or State. 

The local district thus organized separately for the 
conduct of schools prevails in one form or another in 
the States west of the Alleghanies, except in Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee,^ and Louisiana. At 
one time its prevalence was general, even throughout 
New England, but this condition has since been changed. 
Connecticut alone now continues the district plan, but 
that only in part, as permissive. Among the Western 
States the laws of Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minne- 
sota, and North and South Dakota make the township 
system permissive. 

14. Changed Conditions Call for Consolidation 

It is easy to see how, in pioneer days, when people 
were settled in groups more or less isolated, the district 
plan should be the convenient one for the organization 
of schools. But with the growth of population the ne- 
cessity for it, at least, has ceased to exist. Aside from 
the difficulty already mentioned of our inability to get 
that judicial attitude in local control so essential to effi- 
cient administration, the utter inadequacy of such a 

1 In this State the districts of the county have advisory boards. 



58 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

system in securing anything like equal advantages edu- 
cationally in all communities has been demonstrated 
over and over again. The inequalities in adjoining dis- 
tricts of some of the States where local or district con- 
trol prevails are such as seriously to endanger the inter- 
ests of neighboring communities, to reduce, relatively, 
the value of farm lands, and to make it difficult for non- 
resident owners of farms to secure desirable tenants for 
their lands. 

Then, again, as industrial and social conditions change 
the school population becomes very small in many dis- 
tricts. Under the control of boards having supervision 
of larger units these small schools might readily be con- 
solidated, thus greatly economizing in the aggregate 
cost of the schools of such larger unit. The distribu- 
table funds would thus be more effectively applied also, 
as the combined amounts would make possible better 
school facihties for all. 

Of course, we must bear in mind that the training in 
self-government which this local control of schools has 
brought about has been a very important factor in de- 
veloping true ideals of democracy; but in this day of 
the daily press, the magazine, rural delivery of mails, 
and all forms of easy and direct communication the need 
of such instrumentalities in the training of popular opin- 
ion has largely disappeared. On the other hand, the in- 
creasing demands upon our schools as a result of our 
rapid development in industries and in population make 
it imperative that we practise strict economy in their 
organization. We have already seen that this idea of 
the local unit of control grew out of conditions existing 
at an earlier time. There is no good reason why, as con- 
ditions change, there should not be complete readjust- 
ment, from time to time, in order to adapt the control to 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 59 

changing requirements due to the evolution of our social 
institutions and its effect on education. 

15. The District Tested by the Three Principles 

Let us apply the three principles previously stated ^ as 
leading to the determination of the unit of control. 
This may aid us in judging more clearly the correctness 
of the claims for the continuance of the district plan. 
As a convenient Hmit of service and attendance the dis- 
trict is and doubtless will remain most desirable in many 
ways, especially as it concerns elementary education. 
But districting for purposes of attendance may readily 
be entirely independent of the area of control, as in the 
case of cities. Furthermore, transfers are often desir- 
able and would be possible under an administration in- 
cluding more than the one school unit. It frequently oc- 
curs in rural communities that in particular cases much 
better conditions for regular attendance might be ar- 
ranged than to go to the school centre of a given district. 
The possibiHty of consoHdation and transportation of 
pupils further affects this same argument. It is evident, 
therefore, that even in the Hght of this first and most 
directly appHcable principle the plea for district control 
is scarcely tenable. 

The case is still more unfavorable to the district plan 
when we apply the principle of public maintenance by 
the inhabitants in general. First there is the township 
fund arising from the sale of school lands; then there 
are other funds produced from various sources, as desig- 
nated in the laws of the States, and especially as a result 
of direct State appropriations, which are common among 
the States. These facts of themselves are sufficient 
ground for a control from without the district; for in 

'Pp- 53-54- 



60 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

them we give recognition to the very fundamental fact 
that schools are maintained by the public in general for 
the good of the entire social group and not for the 
limited number who happen to reside to-day in a given 
district. The evolution of our industrial methods makes 
a considerable portion of our population migratory in 
character rather than permanent dwellers in a given 
community. This in itself makes each member of the 
social group about equally interested in the educational 
well-being of all the other members regardless of any 
present relationship to a particular* locality. 

The third principle of popular participation is, as has 
already been pointed out, the strongest reason of all 
for maintaining the local organization and control rep- 
resented by the district system. We have already 
shown, however, the manner in which this same ideal 
of participation may be attained through the delegation 
of certain rights, through representation, to the larger 
units of population. 

i6. The Township Unit 

The town or township has played a very important 
part in educational administration in the United States. 
The beginning of this influence is associated with the 
town meeting of New England, although its extension 
throughout the country has been in forms varying con- 
siderably from the New England type. In the latter 
case the organization is a much closer one and the 
town has held a more important significance pohtically.^ 
As we have seen, the township was for a time superseded 
in New England by the district for the purpose of local 
school government; but later the town system has been 

1 See Fairlie, "Local Government in Counties, Towns, and Villages," 
The Century Co., New York, 1906, pp. 160-161. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 61 

completely restored in four of the States and partially 
in the other two. In these States, therefore, this unit 
becomes the basis for the local administration of schools 
which is in the hands of a school committee. This com- 
mittee levies the local tax, builds schoolhouses, em.ploys 
teachers, and makes rules and regulations governing the 
schools of the town. In case it is found desirable a 
superintendent may also be employed. 

The following summary of the advantages of the New 
England system as typified in Massachusetts is given 
by Dean T. M. Balhet, of New York City University i^ 

*' I. Uniformity of text-books. 2. The hiring of teach- 
ers by the town committee, which is less influenced 
by local sentiment than a district committee or a pru- 
dential committeeman would be. 3. The erecting of 
better schoolhouses. When the town as a whole must 
pay for the erecting of a schoolhouse, the very jealousy 
which the district system develops prompts people to 
demand better schoolhouses than they themselves would 
be wilHng to pay for. In most towns there is a village 
in which most of the taxable property is found. The 
rural sections of the town, therefore, benefit by voting 
a higher tax for schoolhouses by which the people of the 
village must contribute to the cost of schoolhouses in 
the rural districts. 4. Supervision of schools by experts 
is made possible. While the rural schools of Massa- 
chusetts up to 1888 had poorer supervision than the 
schools of the Middle States and many of the Western 
States, where county supervision has prevailed for many 
years, since 1888 there has been developed in Massachu- 
setts a system of town supervision which is probably the 
best system of supervision of rural schools in the coun- 
try. Under this system two or three towns which are 

1 Bulletin No. 5^, New York State Educational Department, p. 37. 



62 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

too poor individually to pay a superintendent may com- 
bine and engage a superintendent in common. All towns 
also receive some aid from the State to make up the 
salary of the superintendent. This law was originally 
permissive; in 1892 it was made compulsory. As early 
as 1869 a law was passed permitting towns to pay for 
the transportation of pupils from thinly settled sections 
to the more densely settled sections. In this way pro- 
vision was made for the gradual concentration of the 
schools of thinly settled towns. This law was a neces- 
sary accompaniment to the later law aboHshing the dis- 
trict system and paved the way for the final abolition." 
In some of the Central and West Central States the 
township organization is somewhat similar to that of 
New England, although there is nowhere found the same 
poKtical importance attaching to this unit.^ The sys- 
tem is general in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
Indiana, and permissive in Iowa, the upper peninsula 
of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North and 
South Dakota. In all these cases the township control 
of schools is vested in a board, usually of three, known 
as directors or trustees. In Indiana one trustee serves 
alone. 

17. Township Units Tested 

If we again apply our three principles as tests we shall 
obtain results somewhat more satisfactory. The con- 
trolling body is more removed, as Dean BalKet has 
shown, from the influence of local prejudice. The ser- 
vice of the school is Kkely to be improved. This unit 
conforms more closely to the general plan for the dis- 
tribution of funds, as recognized by the States and also 
by the federal appropriation of lands. Through it, also, 

^ Fairlie, op. cit., pp. 182-85. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 63 

the State receives statistical reports concerning schools. 
At the same time the unit is not so large but that the 
people may participate in such matters of local interest 
as are really important with regard to the essentials of 
a good school. 

In some cases where there is no regular township 
organization the civil township is recognized as a unit 
for the organization and administration of high schools. 
Where this is true a separate board is usually elected 
which has control over the township school with powers 
and duties similar to those of the district. Such a pro- 
vision is found in the laws of Illinois. This provision is 
usually optional and subject to a vote by the people of 
the township. The plan works well in Illinois, and some 
of the strongest and most efficient high schools in the 
State have thus been established. A similar plan is in 
operation in California under the union high school law. 
Here, also, it has proven a great success. The Califor- 
nia plan is, perhaps, the most highly perfected of all, 
since all non-high -school territory is required to con- 
tribute enough to pay the tuition in these union high 
schools of all pupils from such territory as desire to at- 
tend high school. Thus in CaHfornia the high school 
is a universally free school. 

The chief difficulty in putting this plan in operation 
is found in the ultra-conservative attitude of the holders 
of farm lands, especially of the non-resident class, with 
reference to the added tax entailed by such a plan. In 
many instances this results in an absolute repudiation of 
the fundamental American idea that the school should 
be free to all classes and as a common charge upon all 
property or other sources of taxation which a State may 
designate. In this respect conditions are much worse in 
a State like Ilhnois than in California, for the reason 



64 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

that in the latter State much of the population is recent, 
and tradition has not gained so strong a hold upon the 
leaders of pubUc sentiment. 

In Indiana the idea of the township school as a means 
chiefly of supplying high-school privileges to rural dis- 
tricts has prevailed. A large number of these rural high 
schools have been established, many of them on a good 
working basis. But most of them are small and incap- 
able of becoming the strong, fully organized schools 
needed in order to offer equal values in education to 
all classes and conditions. 

The idea of the township as a unit developed in New 
England, where township meant a settlement of people 
about a common centre or village. In the West, under 
the congressional survey, a township means a geometrical 
figure not necessarily related to population and there- 
fore to schools needed in a given case. It is rather curi- 
ous that this fact has so long escaped attention in the 
campaigns that have been made in various States of 
the West for the establishment of the township unit of 
control in administering schools. The union-district 
idea, noticeable in several sections, but most successfully 
used in California, marks the first complete breaking 
away from the mathematical township and returning 
to the idea of centres of population as a basis for such 
co-operative control and support of schools. More re- 
cent legislation in IlKnois, in 191 1, has produced a great 
change in conditions and possibihties in that State. 
Under this law the number of union-district (township) 
high schools has increased more than fifty per cent in 
two years. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 65 



i8. The City as a Unit of Control 

The city as a unit follows the same general plan for 
the purposes of education as does a township.^ There 
is a central board, usually much larger than that of the 
township, having the direction of schools, including the 
levying of taxes, the building and equipment of school- 
houses, the selection of text-books and other supplies, 
the employment of teachers and supervisors, and in many 
cases also the certification of teachers. In cases where 
cities still remain divided into separate and independent 
districts the general plan of organization is about the 
same for the separate district as for the entire city in 
unified city systems. The denser population of cities 
and the pecuHar interests which centre there make it 
imperative that they have a certain autonomy in the 
administration of schools. This point is very generally 
conceded in the organization of city schools. There are 
a few cases, however, where the district for control of 
large city systems includes the entire county. Balti- 
more, Mobile, San Francisco are illustrations. 

19. County Units 

The county,^ like the township, is treated quite dif- 
ferently in its relation to school administration in differ- 
ent sections of the country. In some of the States of 
the South and Far West it is made the local unit for ad- 

1 See F. J. Goodnow, "City Government in the United States," The 
Century Co., New York, 1904, pp. 262-271. Also Button and Snedden, 
"Administration of Public Education in the United States," New York, 
1908, pp. 120-143. 

2 Fairlie, op. cit., pp. 187-199. Also Button and Snedden, op. cit., pp. 
75-85. See also Illinois Educational Com., Final Report, 1909, pp. 
55-96. 



66 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

ministrative purposes. Such States are California, Flor- 
ida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, North 
Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee. In most 
of these cases a county board has general charge of 
school affairs, and trustees, directors, or supervisors of 
the schools report to this board, and in some cases re- 
ceive full instruction from them as to the local conduct 
of schools. 

Besides the above States, all of which have some form 
of county supervision, thirty-one other States recognize 
the county unit in administration by providing for 
county supervision, while twenty others have some form 
of county board of education. Through the Central 
West, especially, the office of county superintendent 
usually carries with it very important powers and duties. 
He inspects schools; examines and frequently is the sole 
authority for certificating and revoking certificates of 
teachers; requires reports of township officials; deter- 
mines disputes in regard to district boundaries, etc.; 
holds teachers* institutes; apportions State funds to the 
schools. He is elected to office by the people or chosen 
by the county board or appointed by the State board 
of education. 

In a few States the county is made a unit for the 
estabhshment of high schools, usually at the option of 
the people, or for the establishment of special funds for 
aid to high schools. In some of the Southern States 
strong county high schools are developing under the 
fostering care of the General Education Board. As has 
been suggested in the preceding paragraph, the county 
is also made one of the important units for the training 
of teachers in service through the county institute. 

In some of the States county funds have been estab- 
lished the income from which is made distributable for 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 67 

school purposes, as in the case of townships and the 
State funds. This plan is in operation in Nebraska and 
Kansas. 

20. The Same Tests Applied to the County Unit 

When we apply the principles by which we have tested 
the district plan the county unit seems to meet the idea 
of convenience in service only in the case of sparsely 
settled sections, and then only for the estabHshment of 
more advanced education, as in the case of county high 
schools. In the matter of maintenance, aside from cer- 
tain functions of co-operation with the State, this inter- 
est in counties is also practically limited to such high 
schools and teachers' institutes as have been already 
mentioned. In a similar manner participation in con- 
trol is limited except as powers and duties are delegated 
to the county superintendent and to the county board 
of education. It is undoubtedly true that in these lat- 
ter functions county administration is destined to ad- 
vance in importance. The county board should readily 
become a very important factor in the carrying forward 
of our educational development. In the first place, such 
a board is needed for the selection of the county super- 
intendent. It should also provide for the districting of 
the county for high-school purposes, and might well have 
authority to take the initiative in the estabHshment of 
additional high schools when needed, so that all chil- 
dren of proper age might have the advantages of free 
high-school education. Such boards might also readily 
become the agents for distributing State funds, where 
granted, for aid to specific types of education. 



68 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

21. The State Considered as a Unit 

As a unit of school administration that of the State^ 
presents some very interesting features. We have al- 
ready found that most of the constitutions provide for 
some form of State supervision. Under the legislative 
enactments of States all make provision for supervision, 
and all but one, Delaware, provide for an executive 
school officer known in general as the superintendent of 
education or instruction. The first State to make such 
provision was New York, in 1812, and the first superin- 
tendent under that provision was Gideon Hawley, elected 
in 1813. 

Other States have followed until in one way or an- 
other all are included. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
and Delaware the secretary of the State board of edu- 
cation is the executive and supervisory officer. In the 
last-named State this secretary is the auditor who acts 
ex officio. In New York, New Jersey, and some other 
States the title is that of commissioner, variously phrased 
as of education or of public schools. 

The powers and duties of this office vary greatly in 
different States. In general they may be said to be 
either advisory and judicial or generally administra- 
tive. These functions are most extensive in New York, 
where the commissioner of education has large discre- 
tion and control. From this the character of the office 
dwindles to practically an advisory function coupled 
with clerical and statistical duties. In most of the States 
the influence of this official upon educational ideals and 
standards and upon their expression in legislation has 
been far-reaching and profound. 

^ See Fairlie, op. ciL, pp. 215-224, Also Dutton and Snedden, op. cit., 
PP- S5~72- Also Illinois Educational Com., op. cit., pp. 15-54. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 69 

Among the most important administrative functions 
assigned to the State superintendent are: the supervi- 
sion of school officials; the apportionment of school 
funds; the issuing and revoking of State teachers' cer- 
tificates; the holding of conventions of county and city 
superintendents; the making of an annual or biennial 
report; a general stimulative supervision of the whole 
system of schools. He is also frequently made an 
ex-officio member of boards of control of State educa- 
tional institutions. 

Another very important administrative provision for 
State systems of education is that of a State board of 
education. Thirty-three of the States already have 
some such provision, and several other States are con- 
sidering the matter. These boards vary considerably 
as to their composition, terms of office, and powers and 
duties. In general their function is to support and co- 
operate with the superintendent in (i) certificating 
teachers, (2) supervising schools, (3) supervising and 
appointing subordinate or local school officials, (4) pre- 
paring and issuing uniform courses of study. In some 
cases they are called upon to apportion funds for special 
aid to pubHc schools. In a few instances the State 
board appoints the superintendent. 

The perfect type for such a board seems not, as yet, 
to have been evolved. Doubtless, differences will always 
be found necessary, or at least desirable, in different 
locaHties. But the need of such an instrumentality in 
the managing of school systems seems to be thoroughly 
established. 

In this connection may be mentioned those special 
boards, already alluded to, which have the direction of 
affairs for State educational institutions, such as normal 
schools, colleges, and universities. Here, again, great va- 



70 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

riety of treatment occurs. In some cases, perhaps more 
commonly, each separate institution has its governing 
board of trustees, regents, or overseers. In other cases, 
where there are several institutions of a kind, such as 
normal schools, these may all be placed under one board, 
as in Minnesota. Still another disposition of the matter 
is that of Iowa and Kansas, where all the different 
institutions — normal school, college, and university — are 
placed under one and the same board of control. 

Here we are facing a problem of administration which 
is as yet not clearly defined. Just what is to be the 
ultimate relation of such State institutions and of all 
these to the State department of education is a matter 
for careful consideration. 

22. National Control and Influence 

Under present conditions there is little beyond the 
separate States which could be said to represent a nation- 
wide unit of control. The Bureau of Education and the 
Departments of State and the Interior represent all that 
is of a supervisory character. The Military Academy at 
West Point, with the auxiliary service and post schools, 
and the Naval School at Annapolis, the Naval War College 
of Rhode Island, and the naval training stations of Rhode 
Island, the Great Lakes, and California represent a fairly 
national type of educational administration. The va- 
rious commissioners having in charge the education of 
the Indians and education in Porto Rico and the Phil- 
ippines also come very near to representing the same 
thing. But there is nothing, unless it be military train- 
ing, which can in any sense be considered a national 
system from the standpoint of administrative control. 
It is true that the District of Columbia, including the 
city of Washington, is under national control, as a part 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 71 

of the national domain, both as to legislation for and 
administration of education. But this can in no sense 
be considered a national system. 

Probably at no point has the National Government 
come so near to the exercise of definite control over edu- 
cational interests in States as in the case of the more 
recent subsidies granted to State institutions in aid of 
agricultural education. In this instance a definite super- 
vision is exercised. Perhaps it is not putting it too 
strongly to say that the tendency is definitely toward 
such federal supervision in as far as the character and 
purpose of the aid granted by Congress seem to re- 
quire. 



CHAPTER V 

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS (CONTINUED). 
TYPES OF SCHOOLS SET UP 

We may pass, then, to the system and types of schools 
set up, either separately or co-operatively, by the vari- 
ous units of control which we have described. Before 
proceeding directly to an analysis of these types, and of 
such system as they may represent when considered as 
a whole, let us establish in our minds, as far as may be 
done at this time, those principles upon which a system 
of education in a democracy may be said to rest and 
which, therefore, will furnish the criteria by which to 
measure and test the various elements in the present 
situation. 

I. Principles by Which We M^y Measure and Test 
Our School System 

All men who have spoken authoritatively upon the 
subject have agreed as to what may readily be set down 
as first among these principles: the intelligence of the 
people of a democracy must be sufificient to insure a wise 
direction of the government and of the economic affairs 
of society under such laws and rules of conduct as the 
people, through their representatives or by direct choice, 
may impose. Such intelligence involves not only knowl- 
edge of principles, of men, and of institutions, but also 
that wisdom for the direction of personal conduct which 
we have in mind when we speak of moraHty. It includes 

72 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 73 

not only this wisdom and knowledge, but also that in- 
dustrial intelligence and skill necessary to the efficient 
conduct of the ordinary business of Ufe in a large social 
group. 

After centuries of experience, coming down through 
many changes in national ideals and in th€ mechanism 
of government, the school has been set up and recognized 
as the only institution which society may maintain at 
pubUc expense and solely for the purpose of insuring, 
among all classes, that intelligence, wisdom, and skill 
thus agreed upon as necessary to the security and per- 
petuity of government in a democracy. The second prin- 
ciple involved is therefore expressed in the aim of edu- 
cation as thus provided by society. This aim may be 
stated as being the formal effort of society to secure in 
its members the greatest degree of efficiency in intellect, 
in morals, and in industrial skill and intelligence, both 
individually and collectively, of which these members 
are capable. 

Schools, to be successful, need to be of different types. 
They should adapt themselves to the different stages of 
development, the varying tastes and inclinations of indi- 
viduals, as well as the various social needs in the way 
of specially trained experts in different departments of 
life. This gives us a third principle: the schools estab- 
lished by society, in order to conform to the social aim 
of education, should represent such variety of type as, 
on the one hand, to appeal to different stages of develop- 
ment and to different capacities of individuals, and, on 
the other hand, to meet the need of society for specially 
trained experts. 

In doing this society is confronted by certain limita- 
tions. The resources available for this work are limited. 
There is also a time Hmit, both because society must 



74 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

continue its institutional existence, which we have seen 
to be, in the case of a democracy, dependent upon gen- 
eral intelligence, wisdom, and skill, and because the 
time which the individual may give to the process of 
being educated is also limited. Another vitally impor- 
tant principle involved is that of the conservation of 
the health of children and youth. To succeed in the 
educative process there is need of the utmost freedom 
from both chronic ailments and the prevailing conta- 
gions of this period of life. The fourth principle, there- 
fore, is that economic treatment of the problem of gen- 
eral education with reference to the above-mentioned 
conditions which is necessary to its ultimate success. 

At the same time, several general sociological condi- 
tions are to be considered, any one of which might stand 
in the way of efficiency on the part of the schools if the 
organization of education did not look to the prevention 
of such a result. Among these is the probable failure of 
part of the social group, if left to themselves, in requir- 
ing the young to take advantage of the opportunities 
offered for education. Such failure may arise either on 
account of economic pressure or because of a too low 
estimate of the value and necessity of education when 
left to individual standards of judgment. This gives 
us a basis for the statement of a fifth principle, which is 
that society must require of such delinquents, by legal 
compulsion, that their children be kept in school. 

Stated in brief, the five leading principles by which 
we may test the educational system thus far established 
are: 

1. Intelligence, skill, and right conduct on the part of a 
people, subject to certain individual limitations, are funda- 
mentally essential in a democracy. 

2. // is the aim of society, through the public school as a 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 75 

special instrumentality, to insure in all the people the 
greatest degree of efficiency, physically, intellectually, mor- 
ally, and industrially, of which they are individually and 
collectively capable. 

3. Schools, to he efficient, must be varied in type to the 
end that they may provide for individual differences in 
capacity and in stages of development and also for the va- 
ried needs of society in the way of trained service. 

4. The situation demands the most economic treatment 
of the problem of education, financially, in the matter of 
time, and also in health conditions, that is consistent with 
its most effective administration. 

5. In order to insure the general effectiveness of such a 
system society must, by legal compulsion if necessary, see 
to it that parents keep their children in school long enough 
to enable them, within the range of their capabilities, to 
get at least the minimum of knowledge, wisdom, and skill 
necessary to the highest good of the individual and the 
well-being of the State. 

2. Components of Our National System of 
Education 

In its main features the system which has grown 
up throughout the States under the control scheme 
which we have already reviewed is homogeneous enough 
to be considered national. It includes practically all 
known varieties of school, such as kindergarten, elemen- 
tary school, high school, industrial schools which com- 
prise schools of agriculture and trade-schools; con- 
tinuation schools, including night-schools; vacation- 
schools, manual training-schools, nautical schools, mili- 
tary schools, technical schools, normal schools, colleges, 
and universities. There are also schools maintained at 
public expense for the education of defectives, such as 



76 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the deaf, blind, and feeble-minded; and also for delin- 
quents there are industrial reform schools. 

3. Kindergartens and Elementary Schools 

The kindergarten occurs chiefly in the cities. It is 
organized on the basis of Froebel's *'gift^s," with songs 
and plays, and is usually open to children from three 
to six years old. About four hundred cities, in 1909-10, 
reported kindergartens, for which about six thousand 
teachers were employed. The number of these schools 
seems to be increasing, and an aggressive campaign for 
the establishment of kindergartens has been going on 
in recent years. In 1909 was incorporated the National 
Association for the Promotion of Kindergarten Educa- 
tion. This organization will urge kindergarten legisla- 
tion and distribute literature on the subject. 

The elementary school is the most commonly distrib- 
uted of all types and is the first school which the vast 
majority of children attend. In this type education 
may therefore be said to have become universal. The 
minimum school age is five to six years, and the stand- 
ard length of the course is eight years, thus permitting 
the child to finish normally at fourteen. There are some 
variations from this both ways. In New England, New 
York, and some other cases more isolated the period is 
nine years, while in the case of a few cities it is only 
seven. A more recent and very interesting variation 
from the customary extent of this period is the six-year 
elementary plan followed by an intermediate period of 
three or four years. Such a plan is now in operation 
in Los Angeles, Cal., and in Gary, Ind. The length 
of the school year varies greatly. The general average 
for the United States in 1908-9^ was 155.3 days. The 

^ For statistics, see U. S. Com. Report, 1910, vol. II. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 77 

longest year was in Rhode Island, 194 days, and the 
shortest in South CaroHna, 98 days. 

About 480,000 teachers are employed in the elementary 
schools of the United States. A very large percentage 
of these are women, and the tenure of service is short. 
Most of them enter upon the work without any special 
preparation in the way of professional training. What 
skill they acquire in presentation and management they 
must get in service. 

4. High Schools 

The public high school is the secondary school of this 
system. It includes the four years succeeding the ele- 
mentary school, or normally from about fourteen to 
eighteen years of age. This would be seen to vary un- 
der such plans as those cited above. According to the 
reports of 1909-10^ there were 10,213 high schools, em- 
ploying 41,667 teachers, of whom 18,890 were .men 
and 22,777 women. The total enrollment in these high 
schools was 915,061, of which 398,525 were boys and 
516,536 girls. Of the total number of high schools 
6,421 report four-year courses. These four-year high 
schools enroll over 88 per cent of the secondary students. 
Of the total number of students for 1909-10, 12.17 per 
cent graduated, and of these graduates about one third, 
or 4.6 per cent of all, prepared for college. 

5. Statistical Summary 

Taking both elementary and high schools together, the 
public schools enrolled 72.22 per cent of the total school 
population in 1908-9 as against 61.45 per cent in 1870-1. 
The total number of teachers employed was 506,453,* 
of which 108,300 were men and 398,153 women. This 
^ See U. S. Com. Report, 1910, vol. H, p. 1131. 



78 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

makes the per cent of men teachers 21.4. The average 
monthly wages of these teachers was $57. For men it 
was $63.39 and for women $50.08. The total expendi- 
tures for the same year for public schools were $401,- 
397,747, of which $237,013,913 was for salaries of teach- 
ers and superintendents. 

6. Higher Education 

Of the 602 universities, colleges, and technological 
schools of college rank reporting in 19 10, 89 are controlled 
by States or municipalities. There were enrolled in the 
collegiate departments of these 89 institutions, 47,492 
men and 16,724 women, or a total of 64,216. In the grad- 
uate departments were enrolled 2,427 men and 983 
women, or a total of 3,410. This makes a grand total of 
67,626 enrolled. These institutions are distributed as 
follows: 37 States and i city (Cincinnati) support uni- 
versities; 5 States and 2 cities (New York and Philadel- 
phia) provide colleges; 19 States have separate colleges 
of agriculture or of agriculture and mechanic arts ; there 
are 4 State schools of mines and 4 State technological 
schools of college grade. South Carolina and Virginia 
each supports a mihtary school of college rank, while 
Delaware and North CaroKna have colleges for colored 
students, that in the latter State being a college of agri- 
culture and mechanic arts. A number of States make 
the agricultural college a part of the State university. 
These were not enumerated in the 19 given above. In 
the case of Ohio 3 institutions are designated as univer- 
sities, while in the case of Virginia there are 3 State col- 
leges, including WilKam and Mary's College, in addition 
to the university and mihtary institute. In Mississippi 
2 colleges of agriculture are maintained by the State. 

It thus becomes evident that the country at large 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 79 

and the Federal Government, through its land-grant 
poHcy and its appropriation of funds for training and 
experimenting in agriculture, are thoroughly committed 
to the idea of higher education as a function of the State. 
In many of the States this ideal of public education 
manifests itself not only in the lines of agriculture and 
engineering, but also in the study of civic and industrial 
problems, in law, medicine, public sanitation, and educa- 
tion, as well as in arts, letters, and philosophy. 

7. Industrial Education 

Under industrial education we may group all those 
schools, not of college rank, by means of which training 
is offered, at public expense, in trades, in agriculture, 
and in domestic arts and sciences. According to the 
reports given^ there are about forty-nine such institu- 
tions in the United States, with a tendency to rapidly 
increase the number. Of these the agricultural type 
predominates, with a few trade-schools and one nautical 
school. Continuation schools- are a form of trade-school 
usually conducted at night, or if conducted in the day- 
time the daily programme is arranged so as to permit 
a division of time between work and study hours, for 
those who attend. There are also about thirty-three 
manual-training and technical high schools under pubHc 
control, as reported for the same year. These schools 
offer a general education with manual training as one 
of the principal exercises. In a few cases only do these 
schools undertake any work which may be classedlstrictly 
as vocational. 

Besides these, six commercial high schools, together 

^U. S. Com. Report, 1910, vol. II, pp. 1219-32. 
2 See under "Nomenclature," U. S. Com. Report, 1910, vol. I, pp. 
94-96. 



80 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

with commercial departments in other high schools, en- 
rolled a total of 81,249 pupils, over one-half of the num- 
ber being in the North Atlantic division and about 81.5 
per cent in the North Atlantic and North Central divi- 
sions. 

8. Normal Schools 

There were in the United States, in 1910, 196 public 
normal schools,^ enrolling 79,546 students, or an average 
of about 406 per school. At the same time 694 public 
high schools offering professional courses for teachers 
enrolled in these courses 13,641 students, thus making a 
total of 93,187 pursuing teachers' professional courses in 
public normal schools and high schools. 

All but five of the States support one or more normal 
schools as distinct institutions. Delaware has no State 
normal school, but a teachers' course is offered in the 
State College for Colored Students. Nevada combines 
this function with the department of education of the 
State university, while Utah and Wyoming make the 
normal school a department of the university. Ten- 
nessee has no State normal school, 'strictly speaking, 
although the State contributes regularly to the support 
of Peabody College for Teachers. 

Besides the State normal schools, there are a number 
of normal schools, teachers' training-schools, and teach- 
ers' colleges supported by municipalities, as in the cases 
of Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, New York, and 
Saint Louis. The tendency of city systems seems to 
look to the ehmination of the local training-school or 
teachers' college in order that a wider field may be had 
from which to recuperate the teaching ranks. There is 
an inclination at the present time also to change the 

HJ. S. Com. Report, 1910, vol. II, pp. 1075-1125. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 81 

name of these institutions generally from normal or 
training schools to teachers' colleges. In several cases 
they are given regular college rank, offering four years 
of work beyond the high school, and granting profes- 
sional degrees. Besides these special schools and col- 
leges for the training of teachers there are numerous 
auxiharies for the training of teachers in service, such 
as teachers' institutes, reading courses, and associations.^ 

9. Schools for Defectives and Delinquents 

Another department of public education is represented 
in the schools for defectives and delinquents. Such in- 
stitutions are very generally provided by the States, and 
in many cases are doing a great work of salvage to so- 
ciety. Schools for defectives are those for the bHnd, 
deaf, and feeble-minded. In 1910 there were reported 
48 schools for the blind. These institutions employed 
a total of 531 instructors, 178 of whom were male and 
353 female. There were enrolled as pupils 2,263 males 
and 2,060 females, or a total of 4,323. 

The enrollment in these schools for the bHnd was dis- 
tributed as follows as to grade: 

Kindergarten 419 

Elementary, grades i to 4 Ij59I 

Elementary, grades 5 to 8 i,i34 

High-school grades 599 

One thousand three hundred and seventeen were being 
instructed in vocal music and 1,752 in instrumental; 
2,855 were in the industrial departments. 

The total expenditures amounted to $1,577,383, or a 
per-capita average, based on the enrollment, of $364.85 
per year. 

^ The problem of the training of teachers is treated more fully in 
chap. IX. 



82 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

The schools for the deaf numbered 57, with 1,208 in- 
structors, 378 males and 830 females. The total num- 
ber of pupils was 10,399, 5,681 males and 4,718 females. 
These were distributed as follows: 

Kindergarten 919 

Elementary grades, i to 4 3,946 

Elementary grades, 5 to 8 2,483 

High-school grades 394 

The number taught speech was 4,135, the number in 
the industrial department 6,052. The expenditures for 
the year were $2,971,256, or an average cost per student, 
based on enrollment, of $285.73. 

Besides these State schools for the deaf, there were 
reported 53 day-schools enrolling 1,508 deaf pupils and 
employing 189 instructors. 

In the 25 institutions for the education of the feeble- 
minded which reported in 19 10, there were employed 
270 instructors, including 58 men and 212 women, and 
1,385 assistants. The total number of inmates was 16,- 
678, of which 8,825 were males and 7,853 females. The 
reports show that 9,689 of these could not be taught in 
school or kindergarten. Of those capable of receiving 
instruction 1,456 were in the kindergarten, 1,754 in 
grades one and two, 830 in grades three and four, and 
393 above the fourth grade. Four thousand six hundred 
and seventy-six were in the industrial-training depart- 
ment, and 3,069 were being taught some trade or occu- 
pation. The total expenditures of these institutions 
was $3,949,109, or $236.80 for each inmate reported. 

The schools for dehnquents have taken on a different 
significance in recent years. They are more frequently 
called industrial schools, although the name of reform 
school still holds. Their function is not only reforma- 
tory but also protective or in the nature of rescue schools, 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 83 

in that the purpose frequently is to save the young from 
bad environments and thus prevent criminal develop- 
ment. The 1 910 report shows 115 of these institutions 
maintained by the pubHc. Of the 56,663 inmates 43,702 
were boys and 12,961 girls; 45,741 were white and 7,434 
colored; 42,381 received instruction in school classes, 
and 39,392 were learning some trade. The 115 schools 
employed 1,117 teachers and 2,783 assistants not teach- 
ers. There were expended a total of $8,430,572 for main- 
taining these institutions, or an average of $148.78 per 
inmate. 

10. Military and Naval Schools 

If we add to this Hst of descriptions the mihtary and 
naval schools and their auxiharies, the National Train- 
ing School for Boys at Washington, D. C, the various 
Indian schools, the Bureau of Education, the Smith- 
sonian Institution, and the Library of Congress, estab- 
lished and maintained chiefly by the Federal Govern- 
ment, we shall have completed, in a brief way, a 
description of the schools and institutions organized and 
maintained at pubUc expense for the purposes of educa- 
tion in the United States. 

II. Units of Control — Preliminary Considerations 

We are now to study the distribution of these elements 
of the school system among the units of control and to 
consider them as a complete working scheme. At the 
same time we are to test them by the principles and 
standards involved and with reference to their efficiency 
in securing the results for which they have been estab- 
lished. 

The kindergarten, as indicated by the figures already 
given, is not generally estabhshed as yet; but it has 



84 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

many strong advocates and some fine training-schools, 
where teachers are prepared for the work. For the gen- 
eral purposes of this discussion we may very properly 
consider the kindergarten as a part of the elementary 
school system. 

It requires all of the units of control, in some one or 
more of their functions, for the organization and opera- 
tion of elementary schools. Primarily, their units are 
district, township, or city; but as there are elementary 
schools for defectives and delinquents, in some cases it 
belongs almost exclusively to the State. There are sep- 
arate elementary schools for white and colored children, 
and for rural and city districts. One milHon seven hun- 
dred and twelve thousand one hundred and thirty-seven 
of the children enrolled in the common schools in 1909 
were in the schools for colored children of the sixteen 
former slave States. As no separate statistics of instruc- 
tion and expenditure are reported, we may best consider 
these a part of the general elementary system. This 
leaves us the rural and city elementary systems, the 
general statistical facts for which have already been 
presented. 

12. Control of Rural Schools 

The rural elementary schools include those in small 
towns and villages of a rural type and those of the 
country districts. When the district unit of control 
prevails these schools are generally far from ideal in 
character. They are usually operated under a board of 
three members (five or more in villages and small towns), 
elected by the people of the district. The buildings are 
not, as a rule, sanitary and are usually devoid of any 
artistic quality in construction. The village and town 
schools are usually too large for the number of teachers 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 85 

employed, while the schools in the country districts are 
relatively small, ranging in numbers from two or three 
pupils to fifty or more. But large numbers are rare in 
the country schools. 

Little attempt is made, as a usual thing, in the way 
of equipment for work. Many of the schools have little 
more than desks in the way of furnishings. There may 
be a few maps, a dictionary, in rare instances a piano or 
an organ; but few, indeed, are the attempts made to 
collect a suitable supply of books to supplement the texts 
of the children. 

The teachers are mostly young girls just out of high 
school, and in many cases from the grade schools of the 
same type as the ones they essay to teach. Their pro- 
fessional preparation is frequently limited to a week or 
two in a county institute, with possibly the- reading of 
one or two elementary works on pedagogy. In the 
larger schools and in the more enlightened and wealthier 
communities teachers of longer experience and of better 
training will be found, but even in these cases it is rarely 
that teachers are to be found who are prepared to deal 
adequately with the problems presented. The term of 
service of the teachers in any one school is very short — 
often but one term, or year at most; and very many of 
them drop out of the work entirely after a year or two 
of service. 

13. Provisions for Supervision of Rural Schools 

The village and town schools usually are presided over 
by a principal; but he is given no opportunity to super- 
vise the work. Most of his time is taken in teaching 
two or more of the "upper grades." Even if time were 
given for him to supervise, his characteristic lack of ex- 
perience, or of knowledge, or of both, would render such 



86 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

service of little value. As it is, his supervisory function 
is limited to making reports to the board and settling 
difficult cases of discipline, or adjusting complaints of 
patrons. 

The supervision of the other rural schools is generally 
confined to the efforts of one man who is superintendent 
for the whole county. He is usually a man of ordinary 
attainments and experience. If he is more ripe and 
therefore more efficient because of a richer experience 
this is the chief quality, as a rule, by which we may 
differentiate him from the village principal. He is well 
meaning and takes his position seriously, as a rule; but 
even at his best the unit of control is too large to be 
supervised by one person with any degree of efficiency. 
Unquestionably, this is much better than no supervision, 
but it does not meet the existing needs. 

In States where there is township supervision the con- 
ditions are much better. In other States, also, under 
the district plan, better conditions prevail in some por- 
tions of a State than in others. This is due sometimes 
to the special efforts of a county superintendent, some- 
times to the existence of higher educational ideals of 
the people who make up the local population. 

But in spite of these very interesting exceptions in 
the general administrative efficiency of this group of 
schools, there are evidences of the violation of more than 
one of the five principles we have laid down as criteria. 
The education provided is not nearly always equal to 
the requirements of a democracy. The schools seldom 
provide the forms of education demanded by our social 
and industrial conditions. They are frequently not 
economically and efficiently administered. Nor are all 
the children kept in school long enough to accomplish 
the purposes of society in maintaining them. An inter- 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 87 

esting item in the way of statistics will serve to empha- 
size the above statement of conditions. In 1908-9 there 
were enrolled in the public schools, including both ele- 
mentary and secondary, 17,506,175 pupils. Of these 
5,807,552 were enrolled in cities of 4,000 or more, thus 
leaving 11,698,623, or over two thirds of all, enrolled in 
the towns, villages, and country districts. At the same 
time the expenditures for cities amounted to $211,106,- 
299, while the expenditures for the rural schools were 
$190,291,449. Thus the one third enrolled in city 
schools called for a larger expenditure than the two 
thirds enrolled in the rural schools. Evidently we must 
allow for the cost of high schools in the cities which, on 
account of their expensive equipment and the higher 
salaries paid their teachers, cost much more, proportion- 
ately, than do the elementary schools. But even after 
such allowance is made the balance is still largely in 
favor of the city elementary schools. 

14. General Conditions in City Schools 

The city schools are more completely organized, bet- 
ter supervised, and employ teachers that are better 
trained. They have better buildings and a better phys- 
ical equipment generally than do the rural schools. At 
the same time there are factors in city environment 
and in the generally crowded conditions of city Kfe 
which tend strongly to counteract these better condi- 
tions. The more sanitary buildings are offset by un- 
sanitary surroundings and playgrounds that are cramped 
and shut in by the surrounding buildings. The better 
equipment is a poor substitute for the natural resources 
all about the rural school. The better teaching abihty 
is counteracted by the numerous distractions, the re- 
stricted home conditions, and the absence of nature. 



88 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

Superior supervisory arrangements are very often dis- 
sipated by overcrowding, the struggle with dirt, ir- 
regular attendance, and frequent changes in the residence 
of pupils. 

Such conditions have given grounds for the assertion 
by some critics of city systems that with all their ad- 
vantages they can produce no better, if as good, results as 
do the rural schools with all their seeming disadvantages. 
The significance of the whole matter is that there is 
need of improvement in both types of elementary schools 
and that a still larger expenditure of funds will be neces- 
sary in order to attain to the most economic efficiency. 
In the case of the rural schools this expenditure should 
provide better buildings and equipment as well as better 
teaching and supervision. For the city schools the need 
seems to be more largely for better physical conditions 
in the location and surroundings, the size of the grounds, 
and the opportunities for contact with nature. 

15. Wide Variation in Character of Schools 
Provided 

We have spoken of the variations in the quahty of 
schools provided under different conditions. Among 
rural schools, especially, under district control, there is 
a wide variation as to the amount and quahty of edu- 
cation provided. We need greatly some means by 
which there may be a more equitable distribution of 
such facihties. As it is now, most of the distributable 
funds are given out on a basis of school population in- 
stead of as a means of equahzing educational advantages. 

The high schools are mostly for the. cities. Only in a 
few States, and chiefly under township organization, are 
these schools made free to the children from the farms. 
In some cases in the South, as we have found, the county 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS 89 

is the unit for high-school organization. In either case 
both instruction and supervision are better provided for 
than in the case of elementary schools, as is also the 
physical equipment. The chief point at which these 
schools fail to meet the standards we have set up in the 
five fundamental principles is in adapting the work to 
social and individual needs. Too much attention has 
thus far been given to the purely academic side of edu- 
cation to the exclusion, largely, of the industrial side of 
the training of youth. 

1 6. Need of Industrial Training 

It may be said of both elementary and high-school 
work that they lack much along this line. All through 
our study of the development of the public-school idea 
we have found emphasized the two aspects of education : 
the training of mind and the training to some useful 
industry. Society needs industrial intelKgence on the 
part of all and industrial skill on the part of those whose 
service to society is to be through some skilled industry. 
The best period in which to train the young to skill 
as well as intelligence is the period from twelve to six- 
teen or eighteen years. In some way, not wasteful and 
therefore uneconomic, both these lines of training should 
be provided for that particular interval of school work. 
Beyond that, those who expect to enter the trades should 
have further special training along with such academic 
work as will aid them in their trades as well as in per- 
forming their duties as citizens. Those who are to go 
on to the higher institutions should have such training 
as is needed in preparation for doing that higher work 
in the most effective and economic way. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE SYSTEM AS TESTED BY THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 
OF CHAPTER V 

I. Application of Principle One 

Let us now apply the test of our five principles to the 
existing organization of our schools as we have briefly 
described them in the preceding pages. Under principle 
one it was affirmed that ^^intelligence, skill, and right 
conduct on the part of a people are fundamentally essential 
in a democracy. '' If all the people are to participate in 
government through the exercise of the franchise, then 
all should be sufficiently well educated to insure that 
degree of intelHgence as to State and national interests 
necessary to a wise selection of representatives and lead- 
ers in our public affairs. Training merely in the school 
arts can give no adequate assurance of such a degree of 
intelligence. A standard equal to that of four years in 
high school is low enough. With a majority of voters 
having a much lower standard of general training and 
knowledge, how can we ever be on anything Hke stable 
ground with regard to the great fundamental problems 
confronting us? 

Yet we are far short, as yet, of providing free schools 
of high-school grade for all boys and girls. A large per- 
centage of those in our rural districts have no free ac- 
cess to such schools, while in our cities very many, the 
majority, in fact, drop out to work at or before the close 

90 



APPLICATION OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 91 

of the elementary-school training. One remedy for 
this situation would be to extend the upper age Hmit 
of compulsory-attendance laws to sixteen or seventeen 
years. In many States county high schools offer free 
tuition; but these schools are too far from the majority 
of pupils who would otherwise take advantage of them. 
The movement is gaining among the States for legisla- 
tion making the tuition payable by districts in non- 
high-school territory, or by the State. Such legislation 
occurred in 191 1 in Iowa and South Dakota. Better 
still is the joint or union district law which increases the 
taxing unit for high-school purposes so as to include all 
territory logically tributary to an estabhshed social and 
commercial centre, as a village, town, or small city. 
This plan works admirably in CaHfornia when combined 
with a law providing that a tax be levied on all non- 
high-school territory in a county for payment of tuition 
of those from such territory attending high school. The 
Illinois township high-school law as enacted in 191 1 has 
the same effect as far as the union-district idea is con- 
cerned, but a fully effective free-tuition measure is still 
lacking. The one of 19 13 still leaves some districts 
without free high-school privileges. 

As regards the training of skilled workmen in differ- 
ent industrial lines, we can scarcely be said to have made 
a beginning as yet. Recent statistics show that only 
twenty-nine States have any legislation with reference 
to practical activities. This includes all grades and 
forms of training in manual arts, domestic economy, 
agriculture, and trades. Nearly all of these represent 
permissive legislation with only sixteen States offering 
any inducement by way of State aid. Much of the 
training represented is not of a kind calculated to aid 
materially in acquiring skill of a definite and well or- 



92 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

ganized character. Because of the permissive character 
of most of the legislation and the absence, in many cases, 
of such a stimulus as an offer of aid from the State al- 
ways gives, little use has as yet been made of these laws 
in organizing vocational courses. Likewise, in training 
to right ideals and standards of conduct we seem to have 
been, thus far, very deficient. As to just what should 
be done in this latter case we are still much in doubt; 
but all may readily agree that there should be a wise 
and liberal provision for vocational training in our 
schools if we are to maintain our standing among na- 
tions in competition for a market through which to dis- 
pose advantageously of our surplus products from the 
great fundamental industries and in the finer arts of 
Hfe. 

But to stop merely with the training of workmen tb 
skill would be a fatal error if there did not come along 
with it civic intelKgence for the tradesman and indus- 
trial intelligence for the professional man and the capi- 
taHst. It is in this latter respect, after all, perhaps, that 
we are most in danger as far as our institutional life is 
concerned. Without a general industrial intelHgence on 
the part of all classes we are bound to have more or less 
of clashing and discord between capital and labor, thus 
rendering all great enterprises of a constructive nature 
uncertain of attainment and unstable even when they 
seem to have been attained. 

2. Our Schools as Tested by Principle Two 

The second principle reads: *'// is the aim of society 
through the public school to insure to all the people the 
greatest degree of efficiency, physically, intellectually, mor- 
ally, and industrially, of which they are individually and 
collectiiely capable J ^ This is complementary to the first 



APPLICATION OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 93 

principle and its application is, therefore, largely involved 
in that of the latter. The chief point at which this 
common application is not so evident is that of provid- 
ing for the physical well-being of those educated in our 
schools. Our people are only just awakening to a reah- 
zation of the possibilities and needs of this phase of edu- 
cational administration. Indeed, we may very justly 
say that those communities are relatively few where 
such awakening has advanced to the point of making 
anything like adequate provision for protecting the 
schools against inroads made upon attendance and effi- 
ciency by bad nutrition of pupils, chronic ailments, neg- 
lect of the teeth, and the various contagious diseases 
common to children and youth. 

In many of the larger cities and in some smaller cen- 
tres efficient departments of health and hygiene have 
been organized. According to statistics collected by the 
Russell Sage Foundation and published in 191 1, 443 out 
of 1,038 cities reporting provided for medical inspection 
of school children.^ But a vast amount of work still re- 
mains to be done before this phase of our educational 
organism can be said to be efficiently handled. Prac- 
tically all of our rural and village schools are as yet 
without any service of this kind in connection with the 
training of the young. Such provision must doubtless 
wait upon a better administrative organization for these 
schools. 

The department of work here referred to, as thus far 
set up in its most desirable form, includes, under the 
direction of the board and the general superintendent 
of instruction of the district, a department of health 
composed of a medical inspector and assistants, visiting 

1 This is quoted from the Com. of Education Report, 191 1, vol. I, p. 
137- 



94 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

nurses, medical and dental clinics, with all proper facili- 
ties for the best of treatment and care of those having 
remediable physical defects. Such a department should 
also be closely related to and in co-operation with the 
department of physical education. To some of the 
members of this latter department or to the physician 
in charge of medical inspection should be assigned 
the function of prescribing specific training for those 
having any physical weakness or deformity which may 
be remedied by the proper physical treatment, such as 
spinal curvature or dislocation of either arch. This 
would involve some knowledge of orthopedics. 

All of the above work is much better done when under 
the direct control of the board of education than when 
made a distinct function under the control of the town 
or city government. Emphasis should be put upon the 
number and quahfications, personal and professional, of 
the visiting nurses. It is they who will need to go to 
the homes in follow-up cases, a service which requires 
consummate tact, sympathy, and persistency in order to 
open the way for such treatment. 

There is need, also, that the mentally defective should 
be studied through the psychological clinic in order to 
endeavor to attain knowledge requisite for the special 
treatment demanded in such cases. Thus far we have 
made but little progress, comparatively, in this form of 
conservation, although there is that in the form of legis- 
lation by States and in the action of larger cities in pro- 
viding tests and special classes for such defectives to in- 
dicate that a much better condition for the near future 
is now assured with regard to this particular need. 

As regards moral education we are undoubtedly de- 
ficient. Perhaps we have leaned toward the extreme a 
little in our anxiety to eliminate all ecclesiastical con- 



APPLICATION OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 95 

trol from the public-school system. At any rate, we 
have been too much incHned to emphasize purely intel- 
lectual training to the neglect of the inculcation of those 
principles and habits which make for righteous living. 
In this respect also the schools we have set up are still 
lacking in efficiency. 

3. Schools Fall Short under Principle Three 

Principle three is: ^^ Schools, to he efficient, must he va- 
ried in type to the end that they may provide for individual 
differences in capacity and in stages of development, and 
also for the varied needs of society in the way of trained 
serviced As to the first point, it may fairly be said that 
the schools as now organized do not make adequate 
provision, as a rule, for individual differences. It is 
pretty generally agreed by all students of this problem 
that our schools are in need of a rather complete read- 
justment. From the sixth grade on there is especially 
lacking that differentiation of the work offered in the 
schools which makes possible a reasonable provision for 
the individual differences referred to. For a very simi- 
lar reason also we fall short on the second point of pro- 
viding that variety and degree of trained service which 
society demands. 

What we need in order to remedy these very serious 
defects is not more and different types of schools so much 
as the complete reorganization of the schools we have 
with more serious attention to the motor activities as 
they are actually related to the needs of life. There is 
needed a decided departure from our prevailing ideas 
of school architecture in order to give the most satisfac- 
tory and economic conditions for the vocational activi- 
ties which such a reorganization of our schools would set 
up. There is also to be considered the supply of those 



96 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

properly qualified and available for giving instruction in 
these new departments of school work. As yet little 
attention has been given to providing ways and means 
for the training of such teachers. If the State — any 
State — is to undertake the solution of these problems 
with any prospect of success, the means for providing 
this new factor in the instructional work of our schools 
must have prompt and adequate consideration. 

4. Need of a Better Economy Shown — Principle Four 

True economy in the conduct of any worthy enter- 
prise is not necessarily measured by the minimum of 
expenditure of whatever resources may be demanded for 
achieving the essential results. Principle four reads 
thus: "r/ze situation demands the most economic treat- 
ment of the problem of education financially, in the matter 
of time, and also in health conditions that is consistent 
with its most elective administration ^ Educational ex- 
penditures are, in the aggregate, very large. In dealing 
with so large a social group it is necessary that this 
should be so. In 1909 there were in actual attendance 
on the public schools 12,684,837 children, which was 
72.5 per cent of the number enrolled in the schools. 
The total expense of the schools for the same year was 
$401,397,747. This would be an average total cost per 
child in actual attendance of $31.57, or not more than a 
man would pay for an ordinary overcoat or a suit of 
clothes. Where, indeed, could society or the individual 
expect to get as much for the money invested? Sup- 
pose the cost were $50 per pupil; if we have any appre- 
ciation at all of relative values, the price would be very 
low, the investment a gilt-edged one. As a matter of 
fact, the State of Washington does spend $50.75 per 
pupil and the State of CaKfornia $47.65 per pupil. To 



APPLICATION OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 97 

be sure, the man who would sell his soul for a debauch 
could see nothing but total loss in such expenditure; 
and so the estimate would run, gradually increasing up 
to the view-point of the man who knows what govern- 
ment, peace and harmony, social well-being, the finer 
joys of Hfe derived from peaceful and happy homes, 
artistic appreciation, regard for our fellow men, are really 
worth. Ah, here is the trouble! Men, because they 
lack vision, because they do not know social and eco- 
nomic values, are mean and niggardly in all those expen- 
ditures which are essential to the establishment or cul- 
tivation of such values. 

But all this does not excuse any laxity or leniency 
where true economy in the use of educational funds is 
concerned. These very men who know not the values 
with which they deal, when placed in responsible posi- 
tions as guardians of this great social trust, the public 
school, will build shabby and inadequate buildings on 
ground that is undesirable and skimped. They will let 
contracts for material supplies to the lowest bidder, re- 
gardless of other conditions, if they do not even accept 
a bonus for giving the business or the service to the one 
who deliberately plans thus to trade upon the children's 
needs. They will employ teachers at the lowest possible 
salary, regardless of quahfications, the character and need 
of which they do not understand, in order to ''keep 
down" the school tax. They invariably stand opposed 
to any movement that, in any way, looks toward better 
and more efficient schools. 

5. Why Society Must Share the Criticism of the 
Schools 

We hear much in these days about the failure of the 
public schools in meeting the demands put upon them. 



98 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

But most of the complaint is directed against the teach- 
ers, against those who are called by society to ad- 
minister the instructional work. Little is said about 
the failure of society to provide the means adequate for 
the production of such results. We hear nothing in the 
public press about this niggardly, senseless attitude of 
those whom society has called to hold the educational 
purse; nothing when society, over large areas of the 
country, cries out unceasingly and works, often insanely, 
against some slight additional outlay looking toward 
a betterment of the schools. And all the hngering ad- 
vocates of ecclesiastical control of education join the 
ranks of these men, without vision and with no appre- 
ciation of the greater social values, in helping to perpetu- 
ate the inadequacy of the pubKc schools. If this were 
democracy, inevitably and always, with no ground for 
an optimistic outlook toward the future, then democracy 
would be nothing but a huge blunder, a grewsome thing 
at which all patriotic men must look with foreboding 
and dismay. 

If there is any remedy for this uneconomic treatment 
of one of our greatest social investments it must be 
sought through the establishment of such means for the 
selection of those set aside by society for managing this 
huge enterprise as will be most likely to secure men 
of sufficient breadth and understanding to be able to 
choose wisely the materials of education and also those 
who are to administer the work of instruction. Wher- 
ever this has been done, and where the social group con- 
cerned has been content to trust the experts thus chosen, 
and to invest the amount of capital necessary to oper- 
ate the educational plant, provide for up-keep, and take 
care of the necessary increase and expansion, there we 
shall find schools not seriously open to the criticisms 



APPLICATION OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 99 

which have thus far been hurled broadcast and with- 
out discrimination at our entire system of pubhc edu- 
cation. 

6. Need of Economy in Time 

Economy in time is inseparably connected with 
financial economy and the conservation of health. In 
the first place the individual is concerned. He has but 
once to go the way of life. When the state assumes to 
take a portion of this relatively short period for the 
proper education of the individual, the state, society, 
also assumes the obligation to see to it that this time is 
not wasted either through failure to provide the neces- 
sary means or through inadequate or inefficient instruc- 
tion. A similar obhgation rests, also, with reference to 
the physical well-being of the child as related to the 
work of the school. Here society, in order to protect 
itself effectively, must often protect the child, through 
adequate health laws, against the laxity, inadequacy, or 
venahty of the home or the industrial world. All this 
may mean the loss or gain of time to the individual. 

The same conditions in the home or the industry 
named above may also tend to rob the child of the 
time needed in the school, thus also tending to defeat 
the purpose of society in estabhshing and maintaining 
the school. Against such loss society must protect itself 
and the individual by enacting and providing adequately 
for the enforcement of attendance laws. This involves, 
as an auxiliary to instruction similar to that of health 
supervision, the estabhshment of a department which 
shall see to the just and strict enforcement of attendance 
laws. Incidentally, also, there will be involved some 
provision for the proper treatment of those children 
who early develop incorrigible tendencies, as manifested 



100 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

by habitual truancy or a general unsocial attitude toward 
the school. 

Here, again, as in the case of the health problem, the 
general practice is neglectful and uneconomic, although 
there is a marked tendency toward betterment of con- 
ditions in this respect.^ It is evident enough that both 
these sources of waste, if they are to be reduced, will 
involve some additional outlay. The basis for their 
economic treatment will be found in the rights and in- 
terests both of the individual and of society. Over 
against the money cost of the remedy will stand the rela- 
tive advantage of the socially adjusted and efficient in- 
dividual as contrasted with the cost of the unsocial and 
inefficient or totally dependent member of the social 
group. 

7. Application of Principle Five 

Principle five, which follows, has already been con- 
sidered under the preceding discussion of economic con- 
siderations: ^^In order to secure the general effectiveness 
of such a system, society must, by legal compulsion if nec- 
essary, see to it that parents keep their children in school 
long enough to enable them to get at least the minimum of 
knowledge, wisdom, and skill necessary to the highest good 
of the individual and the well-being of the State. ''^ There 
is lacking a general appreciation among some important 
groups of our people as to what is essentially included 
in such a ''minimum of knowledge, wisdom, and skill." 
This Hmitation is true of rural communities generally; 
of some of our more or less segregated foreign popula- 
tions; of large manufacturing and mining centres. It 
should not be forgotten that such groups require every 

^ Both these problems of health and attendance will be found treated 
more fully later on as special topics for chapters. 



APPLICATION OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 101 

opportunity for enlightenment on this phase of our so- 
cial needs. For upon the education of the parents, in 
such instances, must the education of the children wait, 
especially that which extends beyond the first six years 
of the elementary school. 

8. Need of Social Like-Mindedness 

When we come to consider our educational system as 
a whole we are at once struck with its lack of complete- 
ness and full co-ordination. The general situation may 
be described as an almost utter lack of any social like- 
mindedness in regard to many of the most important 
features of our scheme for educating the young. If it 
is urged that this condition is due to the process of de- 
velopment through which we have come and are still 
advancing as a nation, well and good. But is it not 
time, in the interests of economy and efhciency, that we 
apply a Httle of our scientific method to the betterment 
of this shaping process rather than that we close our 
eyes to the most glaring inconsistencies because this has 
been done in the past? It is one of the glories of de- 
mocracy that it permits of a maximum of initiative and 
of free development along all possible lines. But there 
are certain fundamental features pertaining to an insti- 
tution of such nation-wide importance as is the public 
school which should be accepted as constants by all 
elements of our larger social group. Such constants are 
fairly expressed in the five principles which we have 
just been using as a basis for testing our educational 
organization. 

In order to achieve those results upon which our social 
fabric must rest for its permanency and effectiveness, 
society should see that all maladjustments, all omis- 
sions, all leaks in the parts of the structure or at their 



102 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

lines and points of articulation are eliminated. Further, 
all waste as a result of unnecessary duplications in func- 
tion should be reduced to a minimum if not entirely 
prevented. 

9. Need of Better Organization 

We have noted, for instance, evidences of incomplete 
functioning on the part of certain types of schools. 
There has appeared a lack of proper attention to train- 
ing to skill in workmanship in the upper elementary 
grades and in the high school. It is believed by those 
who have most carefully studied this problem that the 
organization of our school units is wrong here — that we 
should begin as early as the seventh year or grade to 
arrange the work departmentally so as to make possible 
the introduction of such vocational instruction. The 
experiments that have thus far been made along this 
line seem to corroborate this view. But there is no 
general acceptance, no movement, except in remote 
centres. The economic way would seem to be for so- 
ciety to organize carefully conducted experiments under 
such typical conditions as would be fairly representative 
of all important variations in communities. Such experi- 
ments, directed by experts, would serve to demonstrate 
the strength or weakness of the plan and would attract 
attention not only to the need of a remedy but also 
to the best way of realizing it. As things now are, all is 
left to a "cut-and-try" process on the part of independ- 
ent units of control educationally, while traditional cus- 
tom holds sway in general, and school authorities suc- 
cumb to the general lethargy. 



APPLICATION OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 103 

10. High Schools Should be Free to All 

Another cause of incomplete functioning seen in our 
high schools is due to the fact that this grade of public 
education is not yet made free to all sections and classes. 
For a long time to come the high school must be the 
chief training place for teachers for our rural schools. 
But in most States there are not a sufhcient number of 
high-school graduates entering the teacher's calKng to 
supply more than a fraction of the number needed to 
fill all the positions open to those of such grade of train- 
ing. As a result, many whose quahfications are much 
lower become the teachers of these schools. And even 
if the high schools were sufficient in numbers and free 
to all, there would still be lacking, in most of them, the 
vocational instruction which those who are to teach 
should have as a part of their high-school training. 

II. Neglect of Rural-School Needs 

The normal schools have thus far largely neglected 
the needs of the rural schools in their special work of 
preparing teachers. This is a result more largely of an 
economic situation, however, than of any direct or wil- 
ful action on the part of those administering this feature 
in our educational scheme. The social classes from which 
the vast majority of our rural teachers are drawn are 
not such as would feel able, in most instances, to main- 
tain one or more members of the family away from 
home for one or two years in order that they might be 
prepared to teach. On the other hand, those who do 
take the two years of training at a greater outlay seek 
the positions which pay best and which offer the great- 
est inducements in the way of vocational or social ad- 
vancement. It is probably this state of things that is 



104 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

largely responsible for the seeming neglect, by normal 
schools, of rural-school interests. 

The situation points definitely to the need of a better 
adjustment in the organization of rural schools. The 
isolated, poorly kept, often unequipped rural school is 
not a strong inducement for young men, and especially 
not for young women, who have had a two years' con- 
tact with the larger social life and advantages offered 
by a normal-school environment. The solution offered, 
and which experience approves, is consoKdation of rural 
schools as a substitute for the village school of Europe, 
and a more complete provision for the supervision of all 
rural education. 

12. Where Colleges and Universities Fall Short 

The colleges and universities are also guilty of incom- 
plete functioning as related to the problem of universal 
public education of a type to fit the needs of our poHt- 
ical and social order. These higher institutions have 
shown the same seeming lack of interest in the institu- 
tions lower down as have the normal schools toward the 
rural community needs. The faciHties needed for the 
training of leaders in expert educational service and of 
teachers* for our high schools have been very tardily and 
inadequately provided. Economic considerations have 
caused the normal schools to push their graduates into 
these fields. At the same time similar considerations 
have prevented a sufficiently large number of those with 
college or university training from entering the teaching 
field, in institutions below college rank, to meet the 
demand for properly quaHfied teachers in our rapidly 
expanding system of secondary schools. A further neg- 
lect by the universities has been in a failure to offer 
courses for those who were looking forward to a career 



APPLICATION OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES 105 

in the field of the educational expert as it is related to 
the general administration of education. This defect is 
now being remedied as rapidly as it is possible for the 
new scientific view-point to find recognition among the 
still strongly intrenched traditions of the liberal-arts 
courses. The idea strongly holds, however, in many 
sections, that all there is to education in the common 
schools is teaching, and that the sole requirement for 
this, from the standpoint of university preparation, is 
a profound knowledge of the subject to be taught. 

13. Better Classification of Defectives and 
Delinquents 

The treatment of defective and dehnquent classes is 
also open to serious question as to its real economy and 
effectiveness. Here the per-capita cost is so great as to 
require the utmost care lest the methods of treatment 
be ineffective and wasteful. The more careful sifting 
of these classes with the idea of avoiding useless experi- 
mentation upon those who cannot be successfully treated 
as cases for education should bring some reUef to this 
situation. The appKcation of the tests of the psycholog- 
ical cHnic and the more persistent study of individual 
antecedents may be expected to lead to a much more 
definite and tangible basis for treatment of this problem 
than has heretofore been possible. But not until these 
institutions are placed on a basis of non-political expert 
control can any such advancement in their management 
and results be expected. 



CHAPTER VII 
BOARDS OF EDUCATION 

I. Popular Participation the Rule in Our School 
Organization 

Like Germany, our educational interests are left to 
individual States to administer rather than to the na- 
tion at large. Unlike Germany, however, our tendency 
has been toward the encouragement of local initiative 
and popular participation in control. This is in strict 
accord with the spirit and method of our government, 
both State and national, in all its branches. There have 
been variations at times and in certain departments of 
government or certain sections of the country. But re- 
actions in such cases are common. We have a striking 
evidence of this in the popular demand for "referendum 
and recall." Our courts, by reason of the manner of 
their establishment, have gradually drawn away from 
the original source of their authority — the people. So 
completely have they hedged themselves and their acts 
about with precedents that their procedures amount 
practically to the determination of the laws of the land. 
Their holdings and decisions either predetermine legis- 
lation or else mould or veto it afterward. As a logical 
result of such a condition, the people who created these 
courts are now demanding their reformation. 

In setting up units of control in education States have 
generally recognized this fundamental principle of our 

106 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 107 

peculiar form of democracy. There have been excep- 
tional cases readily traceable to some local condition 
or influence. Ambitious departments of government 
have sought in various ways to centralize this control. 
But thus far, in the main, the people have insisted upon 
a hearing and the right to participate in the establish- 
ment and conduct of the schools. Wherever movement 
has been away from the people there has been seen a 
tendency toward the same formalism and aloofness from 
popular sentiment which the courts have manifested. 

2. Results of Lack of Such Participation 

One of the most striking illustrations of such an atro- 
phied condition of public interest in education as would 
naturally result from lack of participation is to be found 
in the Southern States. In recent years there has come 
a tremendous awakening among educators, statesmen, 
and men of the more recently developed industrial in- 
terests of the South with regard to the need of more and 
better schools. But the people have become accus- 
tomed to look to the State, as a sort of generous parent, 
to supply the funds necessary to support their meagre 
educational requirements. Now that their interest and 
support are demanded in a local way to make possible the 
needed increase in facihties for the education of their 
children, they present to the appeals of the reformer an 
indifference and lethargy that are bafitling and almost 
hopeless. 

A similar situation has been imminent with regard to 
our higher institutions of learning. Even State institu- 
tions dependent upon popular support have been in- 
volved in some instances. There has grown up in these 
institutions, all unpremeditatedly, a certain aristocratic 
attitude of aloofness from general popular needs and 



108 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

interests. Just in proportion as these institutions have 
receded from such an attitude, have become thoroughly 
humanized, as it were, and have taken up, with all sin- 
cerity, those great problems of the people which higher 
learning alone can render soluble, to that extent have the 
people responded, and will continue to respond, in pro- 
viding adequately and generously for their support. 

3. Logical Limitations to Centralized Control 

We hear much talk in these days about tendencies 
toward centraHzation in our educational affairs. Let us 
not be deceived. We may find more effective adjust- 
ments of the machinery for the administering of our 
schools; indeed, there is everywhere seen the need of 
such readjustments. But in the strict sense, in the sense 
that there is to be less of participation by the people than 
heretofore, there is no such evidence of a tendency to- 
ward centralized control. If there were such a tendency 
there would be in it a genuine cause for alarm for all 
those who seek the permanent advancement of educa- 
tion and the perpetuity of our democracy. 

Ultimately the cost of education falls upon all the 
people, upon all who pay the price of rentals, of food, of 
clothing, of that which satisfies any human want. These 
same people will not knowingly surrender their right 
to an accounting for what they thus contribute toward 
the maintenance of schools. They will even demand a 
right to some specific representation on both the taxing 
and the spending bodies set up by society to provide the 
necessary schools. Every proposed increase in the edu- 
cational budget in order to provide for the rapidly grow- 
ing demands due to our educational development will 
call out more and more insistently a demand for this 
representation, and for wide-spread publicity with re- 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 109 

gard to all innovations or increased expenditures pro- 
posed by those set aside as experts to conduct the edu- 
cation of the young in our public schools. And this is 
only right and just. How else is the individual to get 
all the development, physical, mental, spiritual, to which, 
*'by the sweat of his brow," he has an inherent and in- 
alienable right? 

4. Operation of This Principle in Case of Boards 
of Control 

It is a most remarkable fact that in all the seemingly 
haphazard development of State systems of education 
this principle of the need and the right of participation 
by the people is always uppermost. Nowhere is this 
more clearly evident than in the provisions made for 
boards of control of the educational units discussed in 
the foregoing chapters. The usual practice of society 
has been to set over each of the units of control a group 
of persons chosen by the people as a board of school di- 
rectors or a board of education. Such a practice may be 
said to be universal in the case of cities and all school 
districts, including townships where these are the local 
units. It is much less frequently true of counties and 
States. 

In the case of local or district units such boards are 
invested with large powers and duties, including prac- 
tically all that is essential to the establishment and opera- 
tion of schools. In the organization of the larger units, 
with but few exceptions, the functions of such boards 
are much more general and limited, usually having to do 
with those things common to the larger unit as distin- 
guished from interests more local and specific in char- 
acter. It is the purpose in this chapter to discuss at 
some length the different types of boards, with typical 



110 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

organizations under different units; the possible co-or- 
dination of boards of the larger and smaller units; and 
to offer some constructive criticisms of existing condi- 
tions and tendencies. 

5. Manner of Choosing District and City Boards 

In our previous discussion of units of control as de- 
veloped in the process of establishing schools we have 
called attention, in a casual way, to the various kinds 
of boards. It still remains to discuss these organiza- 
tions more in detail and to study them with reference 
to their actual functioning in the operation of schools. 
Boards of districts and cities vary both as to the num- 
ber of members and as to the method of selecting them. 
In the matter of numbers the variation is wide, but de- 
tails need not be gone into further on this point. These 
boards are either elected by popular vote or appointed. 
In case of election by popular vote two general practices 
prevail: (i) they are elected at general elections as a 
part of the general political procedure, or (2) they are 
voted for at a special election called for school purposes 
only. By this latter method it is beheved that the selec- 
tion of the members is more definitely removed from the 
influence of pohtical methods. In some instances an 
effort is made to select a board that is representative of 
the different sections or districts of a city. This plan 
naturally brings into the board and its actions many 
local or sectional contentions, thus causing the members 
not infrequently to lose sight of the larger general in- 
terests in their efforts to adjust merely local and preju- 
diced interests. The present tendency is to seek suitable 
persons from the citizens at large and to elect those 
who are not only wilhng to take the time and trouble 
necessary in performing this important service for the 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 111 

community but who are able to bring to the service a 
fair degree of inteUigence and good business abihty. 

Where effort is made to elect members representative 
of sectional interests there is very apt to be brought 
into the board meetings and discussions, as suggested 
above, many petty neighborhood jealousies and desires 
which should have no part in determining the educa- 
tional work of the city or district. Such matters do 
not affect so intimately members chosen at large, and 
they therefore approach their work with a more judicial 
attitude of mind and act more in accordance with the 
interests of the community as a w^hole. 

The method of choosing boards by appointment, as 
generally practised, belongs particularly to cities, and is 
also seen to work to the disadvantage of society in its 
effort to secure efficiently administered schools. The 
common procedure in such cases is to give the city execu- 
tive the appointing power. As he is nearly always a 
political partisan put up by the usual machinery of par- 
tisan pontics, his choice is apt to be affected strongly by 
the methods of the poHtician who seeks to mete out 
favors in exchange for influence and votes. Further- 
more, such a method carries with it the probabiUty of 
complete and abrupt, not to say frequent, changes in 
educational policy in many of our cities. Thus the 
whole machinery of educational administration is ren- 
dered unstable, making impossible any such natural evo- 
lution in the local educational system as seems desirable 
and necessary to wholesome, logical growth. 

6. Term of Service 

This brings up the question of term of service of board 
members. The consensus of view is that this should be 
for several years and the selection of new members so 



112 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

arranged as to make the board a continuous body, i. e., 
with always a majority of the members holding over. 

7. Co-ordination of Boards of Large and Small Units 

There is little or no relationship between boards of 
local districts or cities and county or State boards of 
education. Thus far the idea of a logical co-ordination 
of these boards so as to give to each a distinct func- 
tion and yet provide for their complete co-operation in 
carrying forward the administration of a State system 
of education seems to have received little attention. 
County boards, where they exist, may have complete 
charge of the educational interests of a county or their 
relation to the schools may be a more or less formal and 
perfunctory contact at some one point in the mechanism. 
For instance, the board may exist to select and adopt 
text-books, as in South Dakota and West Virginia; as a 
fiscal agent, as in Virginia and Florida; for examining 
and certificating teachers, as in Kansas, Michigan, Mis- 
sissippi, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon. 
Or the county board may have full control, as in Georgia,^ 
where its functions are: to select a county commissioner; 
to divide the county into subdistricts when necessary, 
for white and colored races ; to employ teachers ; to pur- 
chase, lease, or rent school sites ; to build or repair school- 
houses; to decide controversies relating to school law. 
Between these two extremes there are various other 
types of county boards with correspondingly differing 
degrees of authority and responsibihty. 

Kentucky is a good illustration of a State that has 

^ In Bibb County, Georgia, such a board, consisting of fifteen members, 
is self-perpetuating, all vacancies in the membership being filled by the 
board itself. There are four such counties in Georgia, operating under 
special charters and independently of State laws as affecting the organ- 
ization and administration of their schools. 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 113 

undertaken to co-ordinate county and local boards in 
the management of schools. In that State the county 
is the school unit with the exception of the graded-school 
districts of cities and towns, which are independent. 
The ungraded schools of the county are included in ed- 
ucational divisions provided for by statute. Each of 
these divisions has a board made up of the trustees, 
one from each district, of all the subdistricts in that 
educational division. The chairmen of these division 
boards together with the county superintendent, who 
is the presiding officer, constitute the county board of 
education. Thus the county, division, and subdistrict 
organizations are all duly co-ordinated. 

8. State Boards of Education 

As to State boards of education, the functions, author- 
ity, and composition are of almost as many varieties as 
there are States providing for them. In composition 
most of them are partly or wholly ex officio. When 
partly so, the remaining members, varying from two to 
eight, are usually appointed by the governor of the 
State. Like county boards, their powers and duties 
range from that of selecting text-books or certificating 
teachers to a general control and supervision of all edu- 
cational interests of the State. In extent of authority, 
the Oklahoma board, as established by the legislature 
in 191 1, exceeds all others. It has complete control and 
authority over everything educational of a public nature 
in the State with the exception of the College of Agri- 
culture and Mechanic Arts.^ 

In this case, again, no definite provision is made for 
co-ordinate action with or through county and district 
boards. In several of the States the duties and author- 
* See U. S. Com. Report, 191 1, vol. I, pp. 76-77. 



114 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

ity conferred upon these boards are of such a character 
as to indicate that due consideration was given to the 
scope and character of the smaller unit organizations. 
In perhaps as many other cases no thought seems to 
have been given to setting any ''metes and bounds" to 
the authority of State boards, on account of what might 
be considered the prerogatives of the smaller and more 
local unit organization. In other words, these latter are 
strictly subordinated rather than co-ordinated. The 
probabihties are that they should be neither in a com- 
plete sense. 

9. State Institutional Boards 

Another form of State or district board has been es- 
tabhshed in most of the States to preside over the gen- 
eral administration of State educational institutions. In 
the case of State universities there are one or more boards 
selected from the State at large. The number is deter- 
mined by the practice of the State in organizing its uni- 
versity departments. Where these are in two or more 
distinct groups, located in different centres, the custom 
has been to have a board for each division. The ten- 
dency now seems to be toward a common board for all 
such institutions in a given State. Noteworthy illus- 
trations of this are seen in recent legislation in Iowa and 
Kansas. The case of Oklahoma, cited above, represents 
the extreme of consolidation, and puts all State institu- 
tions save one under the State board of education. 

As in the case of county and State boards of education, 
so in establishing boards of trustees or regents for uni- 
versity, college, or normal-school control little or no 
thought seems to have been given to any logical scheme 
of correlation or co-ordination of their functions with 
those of other educational interests. The only approach 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 115 

to such an idea is seen in making the State superinten- 
dent of education or instruction an ex-officio member of 
such boards, but ordinarily with no official relation def- 
initely specified. 

10. Haphazard Growth of Methods of Control 

All of this goes to show that the whole matter of con- 
trol in education as provided for by society through legis- 
lation has been a matter of haphazard growth, of crude 
experimentation with untried theories, of radical move- 
ments due to the dominance of an extreme view, or an 
overwhelming reaction against some intolerably evil 
practice. 

The reaction against poKtical control of educational 
affairs in Oklahoma, for instance, probably gave that 
State its present extreme centralized control — a situa- 
tion no more rational, yet about as inevitable as was an 
emperor after the first repubUc in France. True it is 
that there is ample evidence of the persistence of old 
traditions, as seen in the county unit of control in the 
South and again in the strong, centraHzed State control 
in New York and in the States immediately influenced 
thereby. On the other hand, the development of the local 
district organization came partly as a result of the ac- 
cident of settlement in a new country, partly from the 
strong reaction against centralization as a result of the 
French and American Revolutions. The development 
of separate sections of the university function in States 
was undoubtedly due in part to tradition and in part to 
an utter lack of clear understanding on the part of law- 
makers of what a State institution of university grade 
really should include. But we should not omit here the 
influence of another very important factor, viz., the act 
of the Federal Government in granting lands to aid in the 



116 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

establishment and support of institutions for training 
in agriculture and the mechanic arts. It is easy to see 
how this gave rise to the establishment of separate col- 
leges of agriculture. The thing happened not because 
it seemed the best way so much as because the empha- 
sis was put upon the industrial side by the very nature 
and purpose of the act, and there was no established 
precedent for the States to follow. 

II. Persistence of Traditions 

Once a policy is estabHshed, the machinery developed 
for its operation, and vested interests created, and there 
is fixed a difhcult, if not insuperable, barrier to future 
change without some powerful motive by which to stim- 
ulate pubHc sentiment to the point of action. Thus it 
has come about that practices at first more or less ten- 
tatively entered upon have passed over into the cus- 
tomary and even traditional. And so the example of a 
State or city has furnished to some newer State or city 
a method of procedure which, when duly modified so as 
to suit local theories or local wants, has become the law 
of the newly established commonwealth. 

12. Discussion of Types. Boards of Rural and 
Village Schools 

Having thus reviewed the existing situation in a gen- 
eral way, let us proceed to discuss more definitely and 
critically the various types of boards as they have thus 
far developed. Naturally, the starting-point should be 
determined by what we consider the most fundamental 
and far-reaching aspect of this factor in school adminis- 
tration. Or if the exact type for an ideal treatment is 
lacking, then we may very properly take the nearest 
approach to it as our point of departure. It has already 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 117 

been intimated that this should be as near as possible, 
consistently with efficient management, to the people 
most directly concerned and participating in the support 
and direction of the schools. 

This leads us directly to a consideration of boards of 
rural and village schools. These are, practically in every 
instance, elected by the people of the community which 
they serve. In numbers they vary from the single trus- 
tee of a township or subdistrict to three directors or 
trustees of independent districts. These boards, except 
in some cases in New England, are without any executive 
officers under them except such duties of an executive 
nature as they may impose upon the teachers employed. 
In some cases in village schools where there are a princi- 
pal and several teachers this executive function is lodged 
in the principal. In the vast majority of cases, how- 
ever, there is no recognized principal teacher de facto, 
and consequently no clearly defined discrimination of 
function, when it comes to actual administration, as 
between the teacher and the board. 

13. County Boards 

The first point in ascent from the smaller unit at which 
we find, by general practice, an executive officer is in the 
county unit. Here again the discrimiination of function 
is lacking or obscure. Either there is no board, as is 
true of nineteen States, or else the superintendent of 
the county is not the executive officer of the board. In 
only three States are the superintendents of county units 
appointed by county boards. Thus we find only three 
States in which the superintendent of rural schools is 
under a board of education, while in twenty-six States 
the superintendent is elected directly by the people, and 
in most instances reports his time to the county super- 



118 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

visors as a basis for payment of his salary. He ordi- 
narily reports all educational matters directly to the State 
superintendent. Thus the legislative, executive, and ju- 
dicial functions pertaining to the management of rural 
schools waver more or less impotently between a local 
board of trustees, with an entirely lay membership but 
with no educational executive, and a quasi-educational 
executive chosen out of the vicissitudes of county poli- 
tics and usually called upon to exercise all three of the 
above-named functions for the rural schools of an entire 
county. 

Evidently a county board elected by the people and 
chosen at large, with authority to select, appoint, and 
fix the compensation of one or more supervisory officers 
to look after the work of instruction, attendance, health, 
and sanitation, and defective, dependent, and dehnquent 
children, would be a desirable solution to such a prob- 
lem. Such a board should have the authority to dis- 
trict the county for both elementary and high-school 
purposes, and also for purposes of supervision; to dis- 
continue schools and consoKdate districts when expe- 
dient; to levy and collect taxes; to provide suitable 
school sites for each district; to erect schoolhouses; to 
provide for transportation of children where necessary; 
to select and adopt text-books with the advice and on the 
recommendation of the superintendent; to appoint and 
fix the compensation of teachers; to discuss and adopt 
programmes of study and regulations governing the 
schools when recommended by the superintendent; to 
co-operate with the State board in the certification of 
teachers and in such other matters as demand consider- 
ation extending beyond the jurisdiction of single counties. 

Some such plan of adjustment seems to be the only 
recourse by which rural schools may be organized on the 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 119 

basis of highest efficiency in achieving the purposes for 
which they are estabhshed and maintained. Such a 
county board should not exceed five in number, to be 
chosen from the county at large, and each member to 
serve for at least three years. Besides the general pow- 
ers and duties enumerated above, this board should 
also have authority to choose certain advisory boards, 
authorized to make recommendations to the board of 
education along special lines, such as various forms of 
vocational training, music, physical training, the care 
of defective children, etc. 

14. Kentucky Plan of Rural Organization 

Provisions somewhat similar for the handling of the 
rural situation are not lacking in actual practice. The 
Kentucky plan,^ already referred to, has many points in 
common with the plan proposed. Other Southern States 
make provisions somewhat similar, while the county 
boards of Indiana embody in their powers and duties 
most of the functions above enumerated. The logic of 
such an arrangement is readily apparent. The schools 
are created by the people and the people pay the cost. A 
board elected by the people thus becomes their represen- 
tative body to transact the business of the schools. The 
people can be trusted to select lay members for such a 
board. They will probably succeed oftener in making 
a wise selection than will any appointive body. But 
when it comes to the selection of educational experts to 
superintend instruction or to teach in the schools, all ex- 
perience is directly and emphatically opposed to elec- 
tion by popular vote. This principle will hold good at 
any point or for any unit of control of our educational 
system. 

^ See pp. 1 1 2-1 3 of this chapter. 



120 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

15. City Boards 

As has been said in another chapter, city units of con- 
trol have come about in a peculiar way. It is in the 
nature of the case that they should represent a pecuHar 
problem in our plans for the conduct of our system of 
education. In nearly all instances cities have been con- 
sidered by legislatures as apart from other units. At the 
same time education in cities as in other subdivisions of 
the State has been held as a distinct function of society 
quite apart, in all essential phases of its administration, 
from other functions of government. In this sense 
boards of education have nearly always been given a dis- 
tinct corporate existence under the laws of States. They 
are usually given all the powers and duties necessary to 
the complete organization, equipment, and maintenance 
of schools without interference from other departments 
of city, county, or State governments. 

It is important, also, in this connection, to bear in 
mind that in no case except that of the State itself is 
the territorial unit of control necessarily co-extensive 
with poHtical units of control. That the State even is 
an exception is plainly accounted for on the ground that 
it is the original lawgiving body of society for all mat- 
ters pertaining to the management of schools. 

Thus city boards of education have always enjoyed 
an autonomy more or less marked and distinct as com- 
pared with that of other educational bodies having a 
similar function. As a result the evolution of the city 
board has been more logical than that of other boards. 
It has been, in the main, a result of the effort of society 
to estabUsh a smaller representative body intended to 
act for society in the actual establishment and conduct 
of the schools. Itself composed of laymen, it has, al- 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 121 

most from the first, sought an expert executive especially 
for the administration of instruction. Other matters, 
such as the business side of administration; the laying 
out, construction, and supervision of grounds and build- 
ings; health, attendance, and the care of defectives, have 
been met in different ways, chiefly these three: (i) com- 
mittees of the board have been charged with them; (2) 
separate departments headed by experts have been set 
up; or (3) all have been assigned more or less definitely 
to the one executive along with the supervision of in- 
struction. 

16. The Committee System 

In the committee system we have again the layman 
assuming the duties of the expert. The plan of leaving 
all to one executive head, common in smaller cities, with- 
out giving him special expert assistants, practically ig- 
nores the modern idea of expert service. For this is not 
an age when men can readily become experts in three or 
four widely divergent lines. Yet where the system is 
too small good economy forbids any such specialization 
in experts. In such instances the principle of the ad- 
visory committee working in conjunction with a single 
executive may be found helpful. 

17. Methods of Selection of City Boards 

The prevaiHng method of selection of city boards has 
been by election although not always for the city at 
large. As has already been pointed out, the method of 
representation by subdistricts or wards has not been 
successful. This idea of representation might be much 
better provided for by some scheme such as just referred 
to for the selection of advisory boards representing not 
different sections of the city but different educational 



122 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

interests, as vocational, musical, physical, or the care of 
special classes. By such a plan, carefully worked out, 
boards might call to their assistance bodies of experts 
whose advice would be exceedingly helpful and enUght- 
ening with regard to these great problems of educational 
development which are constantly up for their consid- 
eration. 

1 8. Special Investigations as Related to City Boards 

The problem of city boards of education has attracted 
much attention in recent years. It has been ably dis- 
cussed at various sessions of the National Education 
Association. It has been made the subject of special 
inquiry and investigation by different cities. This was 
done for the city of Chicago in 1898, when an educa- 
tional commission of eleven members, representative of 
different interests, was appointed by the mayor. This 
commission was presided over by the late President 
William R. Harper, and many of the leading educational 
experts of the country were called into consultation. An 
exhaustive report of the work of the commission was 
published by the city.^ 

More recently special expert investigations have been 
conducted, notably in Baltimore, New York City, and 
Portland, Ore. The published reports^ of these in- 
vestigations contain important criticisms and recom- 
mendations with regard to the boards of education. In 

^ Report of the Educational Commission of the City of Chicago, 
Chicago, 1899. 

2 Report of Conmiission Appointed to Study the System of Education 
of the Public Schools of Baltimore, U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin 
no. 4, 1911. "How New York City Administers Its Schools," E.C.Moore 
("School Efficiency Series," Hanus), World Book Co., N. Y., 1913. 
Report of the Survey of the Public School System of School District 
No. I, Multnomah County, Oregon, City of Portland, Nov. i, 1913. 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 123 

the first two cities it happens that the department of 
education, instead of being an independent corporation 
of an independent school district, is administered under 
a department or departments of municipal government. 
The recommendations made in both instances are 
strongly against placing such limitations upon the ad- 
ministration as naturally arise where political methods 
enter into the selection and appointment of any of the offi- 
cials or experts connected with the conduct of education. 
Nearly all critics agree, also, that the board of educa- 
tion of a city should be a comparatively small body. 
Various numbers are suggested, but in most cases three 
to seven members are designated as sufficient. The term 
of office generally proposed is at least three years, with 
a minority of the members chosen each year, thus mak- 
ing the body continuous. 

19. Make-up of an Ideal City Board 

If we were to embody in one statement all the impor- 
tant points which go to make up an ideal board for trans- 
acting the business of the schools and enacting the nec- 
essary legislation for their government under the city 
charter or the general State law, as the case may be, it 
would read about as follows: The board of education 
of a city should consist of three to seven members, vary- 
ing with the size of the city concerned. These members, 
chosen at large from the city, should be elected by the 
people, and should serve for a term of three to five 
years without pay. One new member should be chosen 
each year, thus making the board a continuous body. 
They should be both pohtically and financially inde- 
pendent of other departments of municipal govern- 
ment. They should be empowered and required to 
choose experts to supervise (i) the work of instruc- 



124 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

tion; (2) the business management and supplies; (3) 
the selection of sites and the erection and care of build- 
ings; (4) attendance; (5) health and hygiene; (6) phys- 
ical education, including playgrounds; (7) the segrega- 
tion and care of special classes. These experts would 
better be under one executive head, especially in our 
largest cities. At any rate, the superintendents of in- 
struction should have certain authority where their 
functions impinge upon the instructional work of the 
schools. In addition to these expert departments pro- 
vision should be made for the appointment of suitable 
advisory committees or boards, which the board of 
education might call into council whenever the situation 
demanded or whenever any particular industrial or so- 
cial interest of the city might desire a hearing with ref- 
erence to the claims of such interest upon the educational 
work of the public schools. 

Such a board, aided and supported by such advice and 
council as these experts and special advisory committees 
might give, and invested with proper authority along 
all fundamental hnes essential to the establishment, 
organization, equipment, and maintenance of schools, 
should be able to function effectively in the accompHsh- 
ment of that for which school boards are created — the 
training, under the most approved conditions and in the 
most scientific manner, of all the children and youth of 
the community which they are called to serve. 

20. The State Type of Board 

The third general type of educational board is a State 
board. 1 As stated earlier in this chapter, such boards 

^ This will include also such district boards of the State as might be 
called to preside over one of several normal schools, since their character 
is essentially the same. 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 125 

may be established to direct general educational inter- 
ests or to preside over the fiscal interests and formulate 
the general rules of operation of one or several State 
institutions. As has been pointed out, the practice is 
greatly varied. A different situation is presented when 
State-wide direction is to be substituted for city, dis- 
trict, or even county control. There is not that oppor- 
tunity for direct participation which holds in case of the 
smaller units. There is felt something of the need of 
applying the principle of participation through represen- 
tation in a larger and more general way than by direct 
selection by the people. At the same time the principle 
of a distinct jurisdiction and control for educational 
purposes may still be appHed. The policy of separa- 
tion from both ecclesiastical control and the Hmitations 
caused by the vicissitudes of party poUtics should be 
just as rigidly adhered to in case of the larger unit as 
of the smaller, and even more so. 

21. Function of State Boards Confused Between 
Two Ideals 

It seems that through the more or less uncertain course 
which our educational evolution has taken some curious 
incongruities have crept in. This is strikingly true of 
the manner in which the problem of organizing the ad- 
ministrative control of the State as an educational unit 
has been handled. Two radically opposing ideas have 
contended for popular support: (i) the rather imperial- 
istic idea of complete control over the entire system of 
schools of a State to be vested in a central personage or 
board; (2) the democratic idea of representation of the 
people at every stage of the process, with diminishing 
authority in local affairs as distance from the people, be- 
cause of wider area in the unit, has increased. 



126 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

The relation of State supervision and State boards of 
education to the general administration of education 
seems to have been confused between these two ideals, 
and in the confusion has become more or less mixed 
with State politics, usually to the detriment of the cause 
of public education. A similar condition is seen in the 
present county control which prevails under county su- 
pervision in many of the States. In the case of New 
York we see the hand of Hamilton and his idea of cen- 
trahzed control. But even here the struggle was a long 
one. The regency estabUshed in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century was to have control of all educational 
institutions, including secondary schools. But no ade- 
quate provision was anywhere made for common schools. 
In 1812 there was established, as a result of this neglect 
of common schools, the ofhce of State superintendent of 
common schools. This was abolished in 182 1, and the 
secretary of State performed the functions of the super- 
intendent as an ex-officio appointment. In 1854 the 
superin tendency was again restored, and the dual sys- 
tem of an unrelated superintendent and board of regents 
continued until 1904, when the present scheme was pro- 
jected which places all educational interests in the hands 
of the regency having as its executive the commissioner 
of education, whose tenure of office is subject to that 
body. 

In New England a very different situation has devel- 
oped. As a result of the educational revival led by 
Carter and Mann, there was established in Massachu- 
setts, in 1837, a State board of education, with power to 
choose an executive. The first of these, known as sec- 
retary of the State board of education, was Horace 
Mann. In 1909 a new board was provided for in Massa- 
chusetts, and the name of the executive was changed to 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 127 

that of commissioner. The State board is partially ex 
officio but mostly appointive in composition. The ap- 
pointments are made by the governor. Two other States 
of New England, Connecticut and Rhode Island, have 
an executive appointed by a State board of education. 
The other three New England States have no boards 
but an executive appointed by the governor in two in- 
stances, Maine and New Hampshire, and by the general 
assembly in Vermont. In each of the three cases where 
boards are provided for these bodies possess but little 
real power or authority. The same is true of the execu- 
tives of the remaining three States. In each of the six 
States the powers delegated are general and advisory 
rather than specifically giving authority over local school 
systems. 

Here we see manifested a strong effort to combine 
with the idea of democratic control the larger correlating 
influence of a State-wide administrative body or office. 
Of the thirteen Southern States — Alabama, Arkansas, 
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mis- 
sissippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, 
Texas, Virginia — eleven have State boards, mostly ex of- 
ficio, and each has a superintendent, all but two of whom 
are chosen by popular election. Nine of the thirteen 
superintendents are ex-officio members of the State 
boards. The powers and duties in nearly every case 
are general and advisory, as in the case of the New En- 
gland group. The idea of democratic control dominates. 

Still another situation exists in Pennsylvania, where 
both a State board and a superintendent are appointed 
by the governor, and the superintendent is ex-officio 
president of the board. Thus the situation is turned 
about and the board is, in a sense, made the instrument 
of the superintendent. Out of these types, not forgetting 



128 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the idea expressed in the election of the first State super- 
intendent by the State of New York, have come, through 
numerous and varied combinations and amendings, all 
the other types of organization of the State as a unit of 
control. 

22. Trustees and Regents of State Institutions 

There remains in this connection, however, that other 
type of State board, the trustees or regents having con- 
trol over the business of conducting State educational 
institutions. Here again the practice varies somewhat 
widely among the States. Recent years have seen a 
tendency toward one State board to control all agencies 
for advanced, professional, or special education. As has 
already been seen, the State boards in New York and 
Oklahoma control practically all these higher educa- 
tional agencies of these States. From this type the range 
extends down to a condition where there may exist not 
only a State board but also a separate board for each 
of several normal schools, for each of the subdivisions 
of the university, and for each institution for the educa- 
tion of special or defective and delinquent classes. Until 
recently, Florida as well as several of the North Central 
group of States would illustrate such a situation. The 
movement is fortunately away from such a policy. 

23. Application of Principles of Control to State 

Types 

If we carry over to this unit the application of the 
same general principles of control that have been em- 
phasized in the discussion of preceding units we shall 
find that, after all the general confusion of ideals is 
replaced by the dominant features that stand out in a 
great majority of the States, we have not so far to go 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 129 

to reach common ground. But we shall look in vain 
for any near approach to an ideal situation in this re- 
spect. 

We shall probably agree that the State board should 
prevail, but not as to whether there should be one or 
several boards. We shall also approve an executive for 
this board or these boards; New England will furnish 
us the type. But how shall the board or boards be 
chosen, and what shall be their relation to the general 
State-wide system of education — elementary, secondary, 
higher, special? 

24. How to Make State Boards Representative 
in Character 

Adhering to the idea that the interest of society in 
an institution is to be determined largely by the extent 
of its participation in projecting its operations, espe- 
cially where society is called upon to finance it, we are 
brought again to the principle of a more or less direct 
representation in management. To accomplish this, 
such boards should be chosen either by a representative 
body or by direct election by the people. Like city and 
county boards, the members should be selected from the 
State at large, and their selection should be non-partisan. 

All things considered, popular election seems to have 
most in its favor. This may be in connection with 
general elections, but on a separate ballot with separate 
election officials to make the returns. One board, a 
State education board, would be preferable, if rightly 
constituted. Such a board should be relatively small, 
not exceeding seven members; should be a continuous 
organization serving without pay, except necessary ex- 
penses; should have control and oversight in a business 
way of all educational interests of State- wide scope; 



130 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

should have the co-operation of several advisory boards 
representing: (a) institutions of higher learning, {b) 
schools for the training of teachers, both secondary and 
of college grade, (c) secondary schools, (d) elementary 
schools, (e) schools and institutions for the training of 
defective and deUnquent classes; and should also have 
authority to appoint various executive, supervisory, or 
inspectorial officers, to act either independently or under 
one executive head — preferably the latter. 

Such a board, with a competent executive staff and 
well-chosen advisory boards, would be a much more 
effective power for the development of the educational 
interests of a State than are most of the conditions now 
existing in the various States. It would command the 
confidence of the taxpayers as well as of the educational 
pubHc. It would harmonize, economize, and correlate 
in all departments of educational endeavor. Through 
it laws would find interpretation and enforcement; all 
teachers would be duly certificated and their training 
assured; the financial burden and responsibihty for edu- 
cation would be duly distributed; proper and sufficient 
means for efficient supervision and inspection would be 
provided; all interrelationships of different departments 
and institutions of education would be properly ad- 
justed. 

The alternative plan would seem to be four separate 
boards from the State at large, similarly chosen, but 
representing rather distinctly: (a) State institutions rep- 
resenting university work, (b) institutions for the train- 
ing of teachers, (c) institutions for the training of de- 
fectives and delinquent classes, and (d) all State-wide 
interests of elementary and secondary education, as in a 
State department. In this case there would need to 
be one or more executives, especially for {d), and prob- 



BOARDS OF EDUCATION 131 

ably for (a) and (b). Some plan for co-operation would 
have to be found so as to avoid conflicts or overlapping 
at the points and Hnes of contact and interrelationship. 
It must seem evident that, where at all practicable in 
view of established custom and vested interests, the 
plan of a unified central board responsible to the people 
and created solely for educational control is the more 
desirable one. 

25. Necessity of Independence of State Boards 

It remains only to be said that, just as in the case of 
cities, a State board should be independent of inter- 
ference by the other departments of government having 
to do with political affairs. The idea of a State depart- 
ment of education subject to the vicissitudes and changes 
of partisan poHtical machines is an anomaly in the 
realm of State systems of education. In this respect 
our statesmen have shown greater widsom than our 
educators. For even in our national interests in educa- 
tion a national board with an executive staff and with 
various advisory commissions is more in accord with 
the whole spirit of our educational growth and aims than 
would be a secretary of education on a footing with other 
members of a presidential cabinet. Such a national 
board, with a clearly defined field of operation that 
should include oversight of all the great nation-wide 
and international interests and relationships of educa- 
tion, would become a power for accompKshment such as 
no secretaryship could ever hope to bring to the cause of 
education. 

Thus the same principles, fundamentally, may apply 
to all the types of educational boards making up our 
general scheme of control. Perhaps no better summing 
up for this chapter can be found than the following, 



132 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

on ''The Functions of a Board of Education," from 
Professor Ernest C. Moore's report on ''How New 
York City Administers Its Schools":^ "Its functions," 
he says, "are not executive, but legislative, dehberative, 
advisory, and report-hearing. In the nature of the case- 
being a lay body, it cannot itself run the schools. In- 
stead, it is there to represent the people by performing 
for them certain delegated functions of selecting ex- 
perts to run the schools, advising with them as to how 
the people would have public education conducted, ex- 
amining into the sufhciency of their plans, passing upon 
their reports of results, and maintaining a general over- 
sight over all that they do, upholding and protecting 
them in their work as long as it is satisfactory, and put- 
ting others in their places as soon as it ceases to be so." 

^ P. 89 of Doctor Moore's report. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MAINTENANCE AND OTHER FISCAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC 
EDUCATION 

Reference has already been made to the fact that the 
early schools were a function of the church. This was 
true in early New England as well as in European coun- 
tries. But it was a fundamental doctrine of the Refor- 
mation that the people should share in common the 
advantages of education. From this standpoint secu- 
larization of the schools was inevitable. Naturally, the 
next step was that of maintenance at public cost so that 
rich and poor alike might share freely in the benefits of 
learning. 

I. Evolution of the Idea of Popular Support of 
Schools 

In the general court edict of 1647 Massachusetts pro- 
vided for the support of schools by taxation, subject to 
the option of the local taxing unit. The first provincial 
assembly of Massachusetts Bay, under the charter by 
King WilHam granted in 169 1, decreed again that "select- 
men were empowered to assess the inhabitants of the 
towns for the charges of the ministry, the schools and 
the poor according to the agreement of the major part 
of inhabitants in town meeting." ^ Connecticut early 
followed a similar course. The movement for the estab- 
lishment of grammar-schools throughout the colonies 

^Quoted from Clews, "Education in the Colonies," p. 64, foot-note. 

133 



134 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

generally carried with it the idea of popular support. 
So also in the establishment of the first colleges, recourse 
was had, early in their history, to the use of public funds 
to aid in their support. 

When later the growth of the settlements, together 
with increasing complexities of church control of edu- 
cation, brought about a growing demand for a more 
complete secularization of the schools, there was a pe- 
riod of decline in education. To tide over this period, 
land grants, which had been made from the beginning 
to a limited extent, now became more frequent. Com- 
missioner Barnard, in his report for 1867-8, quotes from 
the report of Lyman Draper, superintendent of public 
instruction, as follows: ^'In the early history of almost 
every town in every State of New England, a portion of 
the pubHc land was reserved, or special grants were made 
by individuals for 'gospel' and school purposes." 

We are told also that Pennsylvania, in the law of 1802, 
sought to provide free education for the poor as a class. 
The attempt failed, but the failure gave rise to the idea 
of free schools for all classes.^ History shows that in 
other States similar provisions were attempted. This 
calls attention to another cause for the decKne in edu- 
cation to which reference has been made above. The 
well-to-do classes, especially in the plantation colonies, 
looked upon the idea of free education as a form of 
charity. The same idea revived with considerable force 
during reconstruction days in the South, when public 
schools were everywhere known as ''poverty schools." 

But gradually the idea of free schools at public cost 
gained in the minds of the people. The action of Con- 
gress in the ordinance of 1785, confirmed again in 1787, 

1 Carlton, F. T., "Economic Influences upon Educational Progress in 
the United States, 1820-50." 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 135 

appropriating lands for the endowment of public schools, 
was a great gain to the cause of free public education. 
A strong prejudice against direct taxation was one of the 
traditions brought from England. This, together with 
the antagonism of some rehgious denominations whose 
adherents still believed education to be solely a function 
of the church, made the progress, in many localities, very 
slow. The timely aid which came through the national 
grant of school lands seems to have been almost neces- 
sary in order to stimulate the flagging sentiment of the 
people to the point of willingness to do their part in 
maintaining free schools for all. 

2. Forces Favorable and Unfavorable 

Carlton^ finds four fundamental influences at work 
during the period from 1820 to 1850, all operating fa- 
vorably for the cause of popular education supported 
by taxation. These were: (i) Growth of population 
and of manufactures. This caused a rapid increase of 
urban populations, at the same time disintegrating the 
earHer colonial industrial situation. Such a concentra- 
tion of varied interests was favorable to the growth of 
free schools. (2) Extension of the suffrage. This put 
the ballot in the hands of the large mass of working men 
in the cities. Their thirst for equaHty of opportunity 
put them in favor of tax-supported schools. (3) The 
humanitarian movement, which was also an outgrowth 
of urban concentration of population. The various hu- 
mane societies saw in public education the only effective 
panacea for many of the worst evils growing out of the 
sudden transfer of social and industrial centres from 
country, village, and hamlet to the crowded city. (4) 
The labor movement which gave to society and politics 
^Op. cit., pp. 29-44. 



136 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

a newly organized force which must be reckoned with, 
and always on the side of equal opportunity for the 
working man's children. 

The above forces are, even to-day, among the chief 
stimuli to social activity for the betterment of our edu- 
cational system. Two other forces at least may be 
added which are of more recent development, or, to 
speak more accurately, have more recently emerged in 
social consciousness. The first of these is the abolition 
of the institution of slavery. Throughout the former 
slave territory a radical change has come about in favor 
of free public schools for all classes. A new industrial 
life is demanding a wider and higher intelligence. The 
problem is especially accentuated by the presence, in 
large numbers, of the descendants of former slaves. In 
this latter aspect, indeed, the problem is coming to be 
realized as nation wide. 

A second condition which is now stirring the thought 
of all people, in all sections of our country, is to be 
found in the changed conditions in our agricultural in- 
terests. Individual landholders are rapidly diminishing 
in numbers. Tenant-farming is coming to be the rule. 
Along with this change is coming the realization that to 
keep pace in the production of farm crops with the 
rapid growth in population and in diversified industries, 
there must be more attention given to the scientific 
treatment of soils. This calls for a higher and more 
generally diffused intelHgence on the part of those who 
operate the farms. At the same time, in order to keep 
intelligent men on the farms, more attention must be 
given to the needs and interests of country life. But 
all this means better schools for the rural communities. 
Landholders, who are probably the slowest and most 
reluctant of all classes to respond, are gradually awaken- 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 137 

ing to the fact that good tax-supported rural schools, 
including high schools, bear a very direct relation to 
the prospective incomes from farm lands. Thus is one 
of the last and most persistent obstacles to free schools 
after the real American ideal slowly giving way. 

3. Summary of Arguments 

Referring once more to Carlton,^ we cannot do better 
than to quote his Kst of arguments for and against free 
tax-supported schools. The arguments for are: ''(i) 
Education is necessary for the preservation of free insti- 
tutions. (2) It prevents class differentiation. (3) Edu- 
cation tends to diminish crime. (4) It reduces the 
amount of poverty and distress. (5) It increases pro- 
duction. (6) Education is the natural right of all in- 
dividuals. (7) Education will rectify false ideas as to 
unjust distribution of wealth." 

The arguments given as against the proposition are: 
*'(i) Free education for all increases taxation unduly. 

(2) Taxation for the purposes of maintaining free pubKc 
schools is a violation of the rights of the individual. 

(3) A public system of schools was opposed by certain 
religious elements because of possible injury to particu- 
lar rehgious sects. (4) Certain non-English-speaking 
people opposed the public schools because they feared 
that their own tongue would be supplanted by the Eng- 
lish language. (5) Impractical legislation caused much 
opposition. (6) It was urged that education would not 
benefit the masses. (7) Injury to the private school was 
alleged. (8) Public education tends to break down so- 
cial barriers." The same writer suggests another ad- 
verse influence in the form of the ''increasing opportu- 
nity to put children to work in factories." 

1 Op. cit., pp. 45-46. 



138 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

This gives us a very clear and full presentation of the 
principles and forces which were Hned up in the strug- 
gle which was waged in the early days of American 
free schools. In 1867-8 we find United States Commis- 
sioner Henry Barnard ^ quoting various opinions concern- 
ing the American policy in regard to taxation for educa- 
tional purposes. The substance of these opinions may 
be summed up as follows: The exercise of power over 
education by the State is indispensable to the preserva- 
tion of society. This is not so merely as a matter of 
expediency or economy, it is a question of humanity 
also. Free public education is necessary in order to 
preserve representative government. Even higher edu- 
cation should receive the fostering care of the State in 
order to provide for the maintenance of schools of stand- 
ards superior to those already established. 

In 1889, in the first report issued under William T. 
Harris as commissioner,^ is given a long list of reasons 
why parochial schools should have a due proportion 
of the public school funds. The first of these reads: 
*' Because all who pay taxes ought to share in the bene- 
fits of taxation.'* On the following page of the same 
report is given a reply to this sentiment which is worthy 
of note. This reply was published by the Journal of 
Education and is quoted from the 1888-9 commissioner's 
report. 3 ''In regard to the assertion that 'all who pay 
taxes ought to share in the benefits of taxation/ the 
Journal oj Education says : ' This is in no sense an Ameri- 
can axiom or principle. It has nothing whatever to do 
with the poHcy of American Hfe. We do not tax a man, 
but his property. We do not tax the property in pro- 

1 Report of Com. of Education, 1867-8, pp. 323-330. 

2 Report of Com. of Education, 1888-9, P- 634. 

3 U. S. Com. Report, 1888-9, P- 635- 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 139 

portion to the share of benefit the owner is to receive. 
A man's property may be taxed so that thousands of 
dollars shall be used in highways, though he may never 
be able to ride upon them or see them, and may have 
no family to enjoy them; thousands may be used for 
schools, though he was never in a public school a day 
and may have no child to attend ; thousands may go to 
county buildings, State buildings, etc. When a man's 
property is taxed there is no contract, direct or indirect, 
made or implied, that he is personally to be considered 
in its use.'" 

Thus an old, old controversy has come down even to 
the present day. So wrapped in traditions have the 
schools been from the beginning that it has been very 
hard for some classes of people to grasp the force of such 
arguments as the above. The habit of looking upon 
education as a strictly personal affair, vested interests, 
religious prejudice, all these and more have stood, and 
still stand, to a considerable extent, in the way of a com- 
plete readjustment of ideas in strict harmony with the 
real needs of the situation. 

4. Need of More Money for Schools 

"We ought to spend more public money on schools, 
because the present expenditures do not produce all 
the good results which were expected and may reason- 
ably be aimed at/' wrote President Ehot a few years 
ago.^ In this connection he shows wherein the schools 
have failed and also what new things they have done 
and are undertaking to do. Whoever gives a Httle 
thought to the matter will readily see that if the schools 
are to be brought to that state of efficiency which the 
importance of their service to society requires, and at 

^ Eliot, Charles W., "More Money for the Public Schools," p. 25. 



140 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the same time provide for the ever-increasing demands 
in response to our industrial needs, the people must put 
much more money into the enterprise than they are 
now doing. And not only must there be more money, 
but we must also find a means for the more equitable 
distribution of it. 

When the nation is believed to be in need of battle- 
ships, coast defences, or waterway improvements there 
are abundant resources from the revenues which the 
people pay in the form of indirect taxes. There are al- 
ways comments of an unfavorable character by a few 
who realize the true source of the funds which are to 
pay for these improvements; but the vast majority of 
the people go on paying without thinking much about 
it. When a direct tax is to be levied, however, the 
matter is different. Each individual is called upon 
directly to pay over a certain sum for a specific pur- 
pose. At once all the old Anglo-Saxon prejudice is 
aroused and we hear people talking about the enormous 
taxes they have to pay, and especially for schools. 
If they would trouble to look into the matter they would 
find that there is no other possible way by which good 
schooHng can be had at so low a rate, based on per- 
capita cost. 

On this last point Mr. CM. Woodward has compiled 
some interesting comparative statistics.^ He finds that 
in Saint Louis the schools cost $.95 for every dollar 
paid for police service. In Boston the ratio is $1.73 to 
li.oo; in New York, $1.93 to $1.00; in San Francisco, 
$1.48 to $1.00; in Detroit, $1.60 to $1.00, etc. Many 
other similar comparisons might easily be made. It 
seems evident from this that, when considered value for 

^The following figures are quoted from President Eliot's book pre- 
viously referred to. 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 141 

value, our schools are not so expensive as the tax haters 
sometimes try to make them appear. 

5. Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct 
Taxation 

From the point of view of general public satisfaction, 
it would be a good thing if the entire cost of education 
might somehow be carried through indirect taxation. 
But there is another very important consideration which 
needs to be kept before us here. The call upon the peo- 
ple of a community for direct participation in the cost 
of education has a very wholesome educational influence 
upon pubHc sentiment in regard to schools and their 
real value. What people pay for directly they are in- 
clined to examine into pretty carefully in order to under- 
stand what the money is going for. Without such a 
direct proprietary interest in our schools, public senti- 
ment would be likely to lag far behind the present 
stage of enlightenment, inadequate as that sometimes 
seems to be. Such a situation, in case of even a slight 
reactionary movement, might prove disastrous to edu- 
cational progress. 

What we probably should have is a combination of 
the two forms of taxation, which would transfer a con- 
siderable portion of the burden to indirect sources of 
revenue but still leave each community to do its best 
up to a certain Hmit. This we shall discuss more fully 
a Httle further on. 

6. Inadequacy and Inequalities in Support of Schools 

The large increase in the cost of education, together 
with the changes now in progress and everywhere de- 
sired in the shape of industrial training in our schools, 
brings us face to face with the problem of maintenance 



142 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

on an entirely new basis as far as aggregate cost is con- 
cerned. This problem is accentuated with the increas- 
ing difficulty experienced in many localities in securing 
teachers enough who are even reasonably well prepared 
for the work which the people are demanding to have 
done in the schools. 

At present the taxing units for the support of schools 
are district, township, county, city or town. State, and 
nation. By far the greater part of the cost of the ele- 
mentary and high schools is borne by districts. In a 
number of States provision is made for township or 
county support of high schools. Several of the States 
also subsidize the high schools and elementary schools. 
The States, chiefly, support normal schools (except those 
of cities), universities, and special institutions for the 
training of defectives and delinquents. The nation, 
through land grants, has aided in the support of common 
schools and universities, and is now contributing direct 
appropriations to the support of education in agriculture 
and military training under State administration. 

The inequaHties and inadequacy of support in many 
instances are too well known to need any very full ac- 
count here. Professor E. P. Cubberley, in his work on 
''School Funds and Their Apportionment," ^ has done a 
great service of enlightenment to school people and the 
country at large. Not only has he pointed out the in- 
equalities existing in various typical States and the 
futility of seeking to depend upon permanent endowment 
funds, but he has also made valuable suggestions as to 
ways and means of adjusting the inequalities and increas- 
ing the educational resources on a more equitable basis. 

1 Cubberley, E. P., "School Funds and Their Apportionment," pp. 
255, .1906, "Teachers College, Columbia University, Contributions to 
Education." 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 143 

In order to get before us in brief form the wide range 
of difference in ability of different sections in a State, 
and also of different States and sections of the United 
States, the following table has been compiled from sta- 



AssESSED Valuation of Real Property per Capita, Average, 
Highest County and Lowest County for Each State; Ex- 
penditure Per Capita of Average Attendance at School, 
and Average Length of School Year (Approx.) in Months. 



State 



Massachusetts . . 
Connecticut .... 
New Jersey 

Virginia 

South Carolina.. 
Mississippi 

Iowa 

Nebraska 

Oregon 



^2 ° 

i- tn "^ M 
5 s" > ij 



$825.46 
562.75 
411.39 

171.04 
76.97 
84.65 

176.19 
104.28 
212.67 



rt 3 O 
ci"^ en 



fi;s^K 



51,538.62 
670.22 
461.09 

526.02 
160.42 
168.02 

261.61 

251.24 
285.19 






o ac fl 

g-.^ M > « 
W 00 .t:: < T3 



$443.48 
361 .00 
279.99 

75-32 
38.02 

51.13 

116.79 

34-09 

110.92 



$44 
34 
51 



17 






9-3 
9-2 
9.2 

6.4 
3-5 

7.2 

8.6 
7.6 

6.Q 






Ol 



ill 






S8.1 

68.0 

1 00.0 

23.2 

6.1 

14.6 

60.5 
60.9 
56.6 



tistics of the census for 1900 and from the reports of the 
United States commissioner of education. Making al- 
lowance for some discrepancies which were unavoidable, 
these figures still serve the purpose very well. In the 
first three columns may be seen the variations in any one 
of the States given. This is assuming that in each case 
we are thinking of an ad valorem tax levy for the sup- 
port of pubHc schools. 

Reading these columns down instead of across, and 
taking them in connection with columns four, five, and 
six, we get a comparison by States. And if we take 



144 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

them in groups of three, as they are arranged, we get 
a comparative view of the different sections of the 
United States. 

In a similar manner we might compare the districts 
of a given group of townships or counties in any one or 
more States and find similar differences as to the finan- 
cial ability of the people as compared with the number 
of children to be cared for. 

It seems evident enough that on a direct ad valorem 
tax alone, by districts, counties, or States, it is quite 
impossible to get even an approach to an equitable dis- 
tribution of the cost of this chief of our national defences. 

7. Important Principles Involved 

Two very important principles are here involved: 
(i) Where .an enterprise is not only worthy of being 
successfully promoted, but also at the same time is nec- 
essary to our social well-being and to the perpetuation 
of our essential institutions as a nation, adequate means 
should be suppHed, to the extent of the financial ability 
of society, for rendering this department of the public 
service thoroughly efficient. Surely no one can ques- 
tion for a moment the financial ability of society in this 
instance. (2) If public education as a common charge 
upon all the people is defensible and just, then ways 
should be found for a much more equitable distribution 
of the benefits of education to all classes and sections 
alike. Only by some such balancing-up method will it 
be possible for society to attain the ends sought. For 
ignorance and vice in one part of the social body is 
likely to endanger the vitality of the entire body. 

8. Basis for State Support 

What, then, may be done further than has already been 
undertaken, in order tQ bring about the desired improve- 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 145 

ments in our scheme for maintaining public education? 
Whatever plan we may undertake to put in operation, 
we should not overlook the fact that local initiative 
in establishing and maintaining schools should be en- 
couraged rather than weakened or supplanted. Just 
here we are favored by the present situation in the de- 
velopment of our educational needs. We have come to 
the point where there is a strong demand for vocational 
training. Indeed, we may say that one of the chief 
concerns as regards increased revenues is the desire thus 
to widen the scope of our educational system. 

The differentiation of work which all this suggests 
furnishes a natural "line of cleavage" as between what 
the people of a given district may do and what the State 
or nation may at least assist in doing. Of the two func- 
tions of education — the training of the mind and the 
training in industrial intelligence and skill — it is espe- 
cially desirable that the former should be kept up largely 
by the more immediate community. On the relative 
importance of these two lines of training, from the stand- 
point of the State, Superintendent Fred M. Campbell, 
of Oakland, wrote, in 1888, as follows:^ ''One of these 
notions is that the training of a boy's hands to a par- 
ticular trade is of equal importance, to the State, with the 
education of the mind. The truth of the matter is sim- 
ply this : such a training of the hands is a good and useful 
thing, especially to the individual concerned, and there 
are a number of pressing necessities which will drive 
men up to this; but the education of the mind is an 
absolutely indispensable thing for the well-being of the 
State, and yet there are no such immediate pressing 
urgencies felt by the individual and driving him up to 
furnish this to his children. Accordingly, while the one 
can be left to the individual, the other must be secured, 
^ Quoted from Report of U. S. Commissioner, 1888-9, ^ ' 618. 



146 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

beyond all peradventure, by the State. Mark the essen- 
tial difference: The necessity of getting a living forces 
itself upon every man for his own immediate selfish in- 
terest. The necessity of educating his children has no 
such visible urgency upon the ignorant man — that is, 
for the interest of others rather than his own selfish 
interest — and the consequences, even to them, are too 
remote and far-reaching to be appreciable by his dull 
mind. No doubt the State would be better off for hav- 
ing an abundance of skilled artisans, but intelligent men 
it must have or it is on the broad road to ruin." 

Allowing for the change in educational outlook which 
has come about in the twenty-five years that have elapsed 
since the above writing, there is still an important prin- 
ciple therein stated which holds good. And it is the 
more fundamental need which he points out that should 
be kept constantly alive in the minds of all the people. 
At first thought such a statement seems antagonistic to 
the sentiment of the quotation. But if we consider the 
State as the lawgiver in the case, and if the State fixes 
the laws so as to permit no evasion, participation in the 
direct maintenance of the schools for training to intelli- 
gence is about the only force that will ever elevate the 
masses to the required standards of intelligence. Gen- 
erally speaking, then, we may leave the burden of vo- 
cational training more largely to the State and nation, 
while the smaller units of educational control should be 
required to care more especially for the mental training 
of the children and youth. 

9. A Working Scheme of Maintenance 

With the above general principles in mind we may 
outline a working scheme for the maintenance of a bal- 
anced and equitable educational system. As a basis we 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 147 

shall take the generally recognized units of control and 
their relation to the various classes of schools which 
serve them. 

/. Elementary schools and high schools, i. The ele- 
mentary schools are by their very nature, and by reason 
of the ages to which they offer instruction, more nearly 
local in their ministration than any other class. 

2. The high schools serve fewer as to numbers, propor- 
tionately, and should therefore extend their service over 
a wider territory. This principle is readily recognized 
in large cities where a number of elementary schools are 
tributary to a central high school. Not until this same 
principle is recognized generally in smaller cities and 
towns and in rural communities shall we be able to 
maintain, economically, free high schools for all. To se- 
cure such a result a larger unit, the county, might better 
have control of the districting for high-school purposes. 
A long step toward equalization of cost would be taken 
if the county could also be made the local taxing unit 
for the support of high schools. 

//. State institutions. These include normal schools, 
universities, and institutions for the training of the 
defective and delinquent classes. The first two of 
these offer a service that is at least as much national 
as State. They are, no doubt, best managed and con- 
trolled by the States in which they are located; but the 
national character of their service should be recognized 
more fully when it comes to maintenance. 

Taking the above grouping as a basis, how shall we 
divide the cost of maintaining them? 

I. The cost of maintaining the elementary schools 
should rest largely with local communities. To the local 
funds there would, of course, be added any distributable 
funds arising from permanent endowment funds held by 



148 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the State or appropriated, by special enactment, for 
such purpose. 

In case of weak districts unable to maintain efficient 
schools without aid, according to minimum standards 
which each State should determine, the State should 
add such funds as shall enable these financially weak 
communities to bring their schools up to the efficiency 
standard, at least so far as this may be determined by 
the length of the school term. 

Wherever it is found advisable, after careful experi- 
menting by the State, to establish vocational courses in 
elementary schools the State should at least provide for 
the proper supervision of this work. 

2. The high schools should be maintained chiefly by 
the enlarged districts mentioned above or out of the 
general county high-school fund if such a plan of ad- 
ministration might become feasible. For the teaching 
of vocational subjects and the equipment for the same, 
however, including, where necessary, some professional 
training for those who go out from high schools to teach, 
the State should provide a liberal subsidy. 

As in the case of elementary schools, should occasion 
arise under any system of administration in use, the 
State should aid high schools unable to do so from local 
sources to maintain minimum standards of efficiency as 
determined by the State. This should be usually on 
the condition that the enrollment and the community 
ministered to by a given school are large enough to jus- 
tify its maintenance as a fully organized high school. 

3. In the case of normal schools and all schools and 
departments of State universities for training in profes- 
sions which relate directly to general public service not 
confined within State boundaries, the Federal Govern- 
ment should give liberal subsidies. In this way the 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 149 

States would be relieved of part of the burden now- 
borne by them, and would thus be enabled to turn 
more of the State revenues to the purposes above des- 
ignated in the interests of elementary and high-school 
education. 

10. Application in Case of Federal Aid 

It would follow from our previous reasoning, also, that 
federal aid should be extended to States which are finan- 
cially unable to maintain efficient educational facilities 
in any of the essential departments of such public ser- 
vice as determined by the recognized standards of a 
majority of States. For instance, federal aid might very 
properly relieve the States of the South included in the 
black belt largely of the burden of supporting schools 
for the negroes. This should not mean, however, that 
the administration of these schools should be taken out 
of the hands of the local State authorities. 

In both State and federal aid all grants of subsidies 
should be administered by the districts and States, re- 
spectively, to which such grants are made. But the 
granting of them should be conditioned in each case on 
(i) a requirement that districts or institutions thus 
subsidized first show a determination to do their utmost 
toward maintaining their work on a basis of efficiency, 
and (2) on the character of the distributing and check- 
ing system provided by each State as to its probable 
effectiveness in insuring the best possible use of the 
funds provided and for the purposes originally intended. 

II. Increasing Demands and Fixed Rates of Levy 

Whatever may be the sources of funds for educational 
purposes, the increase from year to year should keep 
pace (i) with the increase in attendance; (2) with the 



150 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

increased cost of equipment due to the development of 
vocational work; (3) with the increase in the cost of 
instruction and other service needed due to the higher 
standards of preparation required and to the increased 
cost of living. Professor Moore, in his analysis of finan- 
cial conditions in New York City, points out that the 
increase in appropriations for educational purposes has 
not kept up with the increase in attendance. Such a 
condition would show a distinct retrogression unless 
there could be shown a previous condition of wasteful- 
ness the correction of which would account for the seem- 
ing shortage in appropriations. The New York situa- 
tion seemingly does not offer any such explanation. 

Fixed rates of valuation, together with a constitutional 
or legislative provision setting a maximum limit beyond 
which a community may not go in levying funds for the 
support of schools, are sure to bring some school sys- 
tems to grief. In several of the States such conditions 
exist to-day. Because of the inequalities of valuation 
due to physical or economic conditions, sections of States, 
and even entire States, may be placed in the position of 
being unable to do what the people, under the changed 
conditions, would willingly undertake, because they have 
no legal authority to carry forward the work and pay 
the price. 

Ways should be found by which such a sane popular 
demand might always be realized. As far as any exces- 
sive taxing is concerned, the matter would regulate itself. 
People would not impoverish themselves or go beyond 
the limit of a sound credit basis in their efforts to secure 
for their children the best possible school facilities. 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 151 

12. Justice and Wisdom in Federal Aid 

There are both justice and wisdom in the plan for a 
larger distribution of funds for educational purposes by 
the Federal Government. This course is wise because it 
will relieve somewhat the demands upon the people for 
a larger direct local tax for the support of various indus- 
trial lines of education. It is just because much of our 
increased wealth is due directly to the increased intelli- 
gence resulting from the training of our schools and col- 
leges. The tax on corporations might, much of it, be 
very justly turned back to the States whence it comes. 
Education, scientific research, should have a due pro- 
portion of the results of increased production due to the 
application of scientific principles and general intelH- 
gence which the schools have made possible. 

13. Problem of Compensation of Teachers 

The most important problem and at the same time the 
one most difficult to solve in financing our educational 
system is the problem of the compensation of teachers. 
This involves not only salaries but also the pension 
problem. The advance in the cost of living during the 
last decade has been very trying to the resources of those 
living on salaries. A stipend representing a fixed an- 
nual compensation is not readily adjustable to such 
changes in the prices of the commodities essential to 
life. Always the advance in salary is sure to lag a little 
behind the increased demands upon the salary-replen- 
ished purse. On no class, perhaps, does this fall more 
heavily than upon the teachers of our public schools 
and higher institutions of learning. One chief reason 
for this is that they are practically compelled to be idle 
for about one fourth of the year, if, indeed, they are not 



152 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

put to some special extra expense, in order to meet the 
requirements of their profession, by attending conven- 
tions or studying at some institution of higher learning 
through its summer session. 

14. Reasons for Present Inadequacy 

The increased demands upon the teacher due to the 
advance made in the character of the work, both of in- 
struction and supervision, in our schools is no small 
item for the teacher to meet. Other professions do not 
require such a constant strain and added expenses from 
year to year. The fact that the summer sessions above 
referred to are supported largely by teachers is an un- 
failing evidence that this is true. 

An investigation in regard to teachers' salaries and 
cost of Hving, provided for by the National Education 
Association at its 191 1 meeting, was reported in January, 
1 9 13. This report seems to indicate that in a great 
many cases the salaries of teachers have not advanced 
at a pace equal to the advance in cost of the staple com- 
modities of Hfe, including rents, food, and clothing. If 
this conclusion is correct, it would leave the purchasing 
power of salaries now paid in most instances consider- 
ably below that of a decade ago, while the amount of 
training demanded of teachers by society has materially 
advanced in the same period of time. 

This condition not only works a hardship upon a class 
of hard-working people, but it also threatens at least a 
temporary breakdown in the standards of education now 
attained, inadequate as these are when compared with 
our social and industrial needs. Such a state of things 
comes about through the necessity of filling too large a 
percentage of teaching positions with immature and in- 
adequately trained teachers. The whole thing shows 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 153 

up badly for the financial management of our educational 
system. Not a little of this maladministration of school 
finances is undoubtedly due to the limitations placed by 
legislation enacted to fit conditions that existed forty 
or fifty years ago. 

15. The Question of Arbitrary Adjustments of 
Salaries 

The whole matter of compensation of teachers is still 
in a chaotic condition. Indiana has undertaken to rem- 
edy the situation by legislation, fixing minimum rates 
based on the teacher's qualifications. The fixing of sal- 
ary schedules by cities is an arbitrary process employed 
in an effort to hold teachers in service and to be able 
to attract a sufficient number of those well quaHfied to 
fill the ranks where depletion in the ranks and growth 
of the schools have together caused vacancies. 

The elements of the problem of salaries for teachers 
as it now presents itself are: (i) Are the present sched- 
ules sufficient to command the services of enough men 
and women qualified for the work to supply the demand? 
(2) If the present scale is too low, to what extent is this 
brought about by the competition of those who are merely 
transients in the field or whose quahfications are more 
or less below the minimum standards of efficiency? Is 
it desirable to undertake, by legislation, under existing 
conditions, to estabfish arbitrary standards, thus ignor- 
ing the economic law of supply and demand? 

Seemingly all our experience and all our knowledge of 
the laws controUing the development of children and 
youth emphasize the need, first of all, of maintaining 
the highest practicable state of efficiency in our teaching 
service. To do this we must set the minimum of prep- 
aration of teachers as high as the possibility of main- 



154 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

taining such a standard will permit. Next, we must seek 
to eliminate, as speedily and effectively as possible, that 
element of inefficiency which arises chiefly from lack of 
experience. 

If once these two things can be cared for in such a 
secure fashion that society will not fall back to lower 
standards rather than pay the price of competent men 
and wonien, will not the salaries of teachers, along with 
those of other occupations, adjust themselves fairly well 
by the free operation of the law of the market? 

In attempting to answer this general interrogation, 
there are two modifying conditions which call for some 
consideration at this point. The first of these is to be 
found in society's estimate of the relatively fundamental 
necessity of schools and education. Wherever we find a 
social group of sufficient size to maintain a school and 
which is thoroughly imbued with the idea that efficient 
schools are actually essential to both local and national 
well-being, we usually find a high grade of teachers' 
qualifications demanded, and at correspondingly good 
salaries. On the other hand, if salaries are low, and 
with no arbitrary restriction on the community's fi- 
nances, the people's ideals as to the importance and 
necessity of efficient schools will very generally be found 
to be low if not absolutely vague and unformed. It 
will thus readily appear that local ideals and standards 
may become a powerful influence upon the market so 
far as teaching service is concerned. 

Again, the market conditions are bound to be affected 
by the fact that so large a proportion of women enter 
upon the work of teaching, presumably because of the 
relatively small number of occupations open to women. 
This naturally tends to swell the supply abnormally as 
compared with the demand. 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 155 

On both these conditions the estabHshment of a higher 
minimum quaHfication standard would take effect. In 
the case of low ideals in a given community, the extent 
to which the correspondingly low standards of teaching 
might prevail would be reduced by the setting up of 
this arbitrary limitation as to who might be permitted 
to teach. With reference to the influx of women be- 
yond normal, the higher standards would tend to shut 
out many by making it more difficult for them to qualify. 

Thus we find that with a limitation calculated to secure 
reasonable efficiency placed upon teachers' quaHfications, 
the law of supply and demand would tend to regulate 
the compensation of teachers, except that there would 
probably still continue to be at least a sHght difference 
in favor of the men, owing to the relative difficulty in 
securing a sufficient number for positions usually assigned 
to male teachers. 

This is assuming that society, in recognizing the im- 
portance of maintaining schools on a basis of efficiency, 
would remove all arbitrary restrictions on the rights of 
the people of any school district to levy a sufficient 
amount to enable the board to pay the prices necessary 
to obtain the services of efficient teachers. 

i6. Effect of Salary Conditions on Shortage of 
Teachers 

There is no doubt that the present marked shortage 
of quahfied teachers is due largely to the inadequacy 
of current salaries as an inducement for young men and 
young women to enter the teaching field. The stand- 
ards for financing the schools having once become fijced, 
it is difficult indeed to induce public opinion to show a 
willingness to meet the necessary increase in the cost of 
maintaining true standards of teaching. 



156 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

17. Teachers' Pensions as a Remedy 

Two special methods have been proposed as an off- 
set to this condition with regard to the pay of teachers: 
The first, that of pensions, is very commonly practised. 
According to statistics furnished by Wilham H. Hood/ 
of the Bureau of Education, there are now twenty-six 
States and several of the larger cities acting indepen- 
dently that have teachers' pension laws. These laws are 
classified under three heads: non-contributory, i. e., by 
the State without any payment out of the teacher's 
salary; compulsory-contributory, or laws requiring 
teachers to pay a certain sum or percentage of their 
salaries annually; voluntary-contributory, or payment 
required only of those desiring to take advantage of 
such a plan. Most of the State laws are of the com- 
pulsory-contributory type. 

In connection with these laws there is generally lack- 
ing any plan by which funds paid in may be returned to 
a teacher, who, for any cause, drops out of a school sys- 
tem. Such a condition would seem to work injury in two 
ways: First of all it is not just to the one who has paid 
and may not participate in any benefit. In the second 
place, it is apt to create a feeling that, because of the 
establishment of such a relationship, a teacher may not 
be removed from the system. In this case it might eas- 
ily result in harm to the school through the retention of 
teachers no longer useful as teachers but not yet en- 
titled to an annuity. The element of injustice might 
be removed if provision were made for payment to a 
teacher transferring to another field a certain moiety of 
the amount paid in under the contract from which he 
is withdrawing. 

^ See " Report on Teachers' Salaries and Cost of Living," N. E. A,, 1913. 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 157 

There is a weak point in this whole theory of pensions. 
The idea of depending on some source other than one's 
own industry and frugahty is apt to prove enervating to 
many, although certainly not to all, of a teaching corps 
looking forward to such retirement on pay as an assured 
fact. It would seem better to make the pay so as to 
leave a margin, over and above the total cost of Hving, 
sufficient to enable the individual to provide for his or 
her own future. In the few exceptional cases, due to 
some misfortune resulting from causes beyond indi- 
vidual control, special pensions should be provided as 
occasion arises. Otherwise each one should care for 
himself. But pubHc sentiment advances slowly and 
there seems to be no immediate prospect for the realiza- 
tion of any such ideal situation. 

i8. Doctor Pritchett on Teachers* Pensions 

Meanwhile a situation exists which certainly needs to 
be met, and met effectively. Doctor Henry S. Pritchett 
in his seventh annual report^ for the Carnegie Founda- 
tion for the Advancement of Teaching thus states the 
problem: 

One of the great weaknesses of our public-school system to-day 
lies in the fact that only a small number of men can be induced 
to undertake permanent careers in it. Before we can hope for 
the best results in education, we must make a career for an 
ambitious man possible in the public schools. To do this, dig- 
nity and security must be given to the teacher's calling, and 
probably no one step could be taken which will be more influ- 
ential in inducing able men and women to adopt the profession 
of the teacher in the public schools than to attach to that voca- 
tion the security which a pension brings. 

^ Seventh Annual Report, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement 
of Teaching, 1912, p. 70. 



158 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

Doctor Pritchett then goes on to ask the four ques- 
tions which, at the least consideration, the legislator 
called upon to enact laws in regard to the pensioning of 
teachers should wish to have answered. The first three 
of these questions with proposed answers are:^ 

1. Upon what grounds are pensions for public-school teachers 
justified? 

Pensions are justified upon practically two grounds: first, 
those of a larger social justice; secondly, as a necessary condi- 
tion to an efficient public-school system. 

The first of these reasons applies in marked measure to pen- 
sions like that of the teacher. Society, as at present organized, 
desires to get the best service it can out of the various vocations 
and calHngs into which men are naturally distributed. In some 
of these callings great prizes are to be won, and these serve as 
incentives for high performance. In other callings, like that of 
the teacher, there are no large prizes in the way of pecuniary 
reward (it would be a wise thing in society to create such). 
Society desires to obtain of the teacher a service quite out of 
proportion to the pay which he receives. Intelligence, devotion, 
high character — all are necessary, and the State seeks to obtain 
them at an average salary of $500 a year. It is clear that, if 
the State is to receive such service, some protection for old age 
and disability must be had, if the best men and women are to be 
induced to enter upon such a calling as a life work. 

Secondly, from the standpoint of efficiency in organization, 
whether a governmental one or a business one, there must be 
some means for retiring, decently and justly, worn-out servants. 
In the past we have in most cases turned out men and women 
no longer able to teach, but the conscience of our time does not 
permit such action. Out-worn teachers remain to the direct 
injury of the pupils themselves. As a matter of efficiency, some 
humane method of retirement for public-school teachers is 
necessary. 

These two reasons for the establishment of pensions for the 
teachers in State schools are sound and unanswerable. 

2. Assuming that pensions ought to be paid, who ought to 
pay them? 

1 Op. ciL, pp. 71-4. 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 159 

Three plans for securing protection against disability and the 
weakness of old age are proposed: a pension system borne 
wholly by the employer, a pension system borne wholly by the 
employee, a pension system conducted jointly by both employer 
and employee and supported by their joint contributions. 

While there are some variations of opinion among those who 
have studied the question, the overwhelming weight of opinion 
is in favor of the third plan. 

A system of pensions depending on the contributions of employ- 
ees alone amounts practically to a compulsory system of saving. 
In order that the benefits may be large enough to form a basis 
for retirement, the contribution must be so large as to be prac- 
tically prohibitory. 

The third plan seems to me justified not only on the ground 
of equity but upon the ground of self-interest, whether the em- 
ployer be a corporation or a government. All salaries such as 
teachers' are relatively low, and, while the question of a just 
salary must not be confused with the equity involved in a rehef 
plan, it nevertheless remains true that the general equities of 
service demand that a part of the pension of a servant be borne 
by the employer. A State still owes to the faithful teacher 
something after it has paid his salary. He has been required to 
regulate his life in large measure for the common interest. In 
addition, the employer, whether a corporation or a State, secures 
a higher efficiency by a well-ordered pension system. Finally, 
only by such joint action can be secured the right co-operation 
between employer and employee. On all three grounds — the 
ground of general equity, of increased efficiency, of a better 
social co-operation — it is desirable that a system of pensions rest 
upon the joint contribution of the employer and the employee. 

I assume that on the whole it is fair for the teacher to bear 
half the cost of the annuity and the State the other half. 

3. What form of pension system would it be fair to adopt, 
having regard both to the individual teacher and to the State? 

The form of pension system at once just and feasible would 
involve the consideration of many details, but at least these 
general principles may be assumed as proven: 

(a) The pension obligation should be compulsory upon every 
teacher who enters the service. 

(b) The amount of the contribution should be determined by 
thorough actuarial investigation, but each teacher shall form a 



100 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

unit, and the annuity which he is to receive shall be based upon 
his own payment plus that granted by the State. Such an ar- 
rangement is just and fair and is capable of actuarial computa- 
tion. Every individual, whether he survives, resigns, or dies, 
thus furnishes the basis for the action taken. 

(c) Contributions levied upon teachers who resign or are dis- 
missed must be returned with a moderate interest — ;say three 
per cent — and similar returns must be made to the widows or 
heirs of those who die. 

(d) A central administration for the pensions of all public- 
school teachers should be provided, constituted of a small com- 
mission serving without salary, with a paid executive who should 
at the same time be a competent actuary. 

"What will such a pension system cost the individual 
teacher and what will it cost the State?" is the fourth 
question suggested. This is a question not readily 
answered from our present knowledge of the subject. 
After assuming a typical condition the writer proceeds 
to an estimate of the relative cost to the individual and 
to the State. He assumes that the pension is to provide 
solely for old age, fixing the Hmit at sixty. He reasons 
that this will "take care of the main load which affects 
both the question of justice and the question of effi- 
ciency," 

19. A Second Partial Remedy 

The second method which has been proposed as an 
offset to the inadequacy of salaries, or, to put it in a dif- 
ferent form, as an inducement for those lacking means 
to prepare for the work of teaching, is that the State 
should pay prospective teachers just as mihtary and na- 
val cadets are paid for attending the respective insti- 
tutions set up by the Federal Government for training 
in the arts of war.^ If properly hedged about by con- 

» See Bagley, W. C, Editorial, School and Home Education, Nov., 191 1, 
pp. 92-5. 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 161 

ditions on which individuals are selected for such work, 
this plan should be readily feasible and seemingly just 
and fair to all. 

20. The Problem of School Accounting 

Finally, there remains the question of accounting as 
related to the financing of schools and all educational 
institutions. According to studies made by H. E. Bard,* 
the matter of efficient expert accounting seems to be 
very generally neglected by city school districts. ''In 
general," he says, *'it is probably true that in no other 
field of legislation affecting the city school district are the 
measures enacted less complete and less constructive." 
If such a condition exists in the cities, what can be said 
of the rural and village districts, representing a majority 
of the people, where no adequate provision is made for 
any accounting other than that necessary to furnish a 
general balance-sheet for generally inexpert auditing? 
Those who are famihar with the methods of handHng 
educational funds as generally practised must realize 
how great and how significant a fact Doctor Bard has 
pointed out. 

In the first place, in many of the States township offi- 
cials hold permanent funds, the proceeds of school lands, 
which with or without any adequate system of checking 
are loaned out in small sums. How much more effec- 
tive such funds might become if consolidated for a county 
and put into the hands of trusted experts whose business 
it should be to exploit these funds on a safe basis solely 
for the benefit of the schools and not for any private 
gain or business advantage of individuals or corporations. 
The compensations required for such service would be a 

^ Bard, "The City School District; Statutory Provisions for Organiza- 
tion and Fiscal Affairs," Teachers College, Columbia University, 1909. 



162 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

mere bagatelle as compared with the loss which annu- 
ally accrues under the present methods of management 
of these funds. Here, again, we see what a gain might 
result in the fiscal affairs of education if we had a cen- 
tralized county board in control of rural education. 

21. The Saint Louis Plan of Accounting 

As regards accounting by city boards, the following, 
quoted from the charter of the board of education of the 
city of Saint Louis, ^ may be taken as a type of the kind 
of provision that should be in operation in every city 
school system: 

The board shall appoint a competent person as auditor, who 
shall serve for a term of four years and give bond in the sum of 
ten thousand dollars. His salary shall not be reduced during 
the term of his office, and he may be removed for cause by a 
two-thirds vote of the entire board. He shall be the general 
accountant of the board, and preserve in his office all accounts, 
vouchers, and contracts pertaining to school affairs. It shall be 
his duty to examine and audit all accounts and demands against 
the board and to certify their correctness to the secretary and 
treasurer of the board. He shall adopt a proper system of double- 
entry bookkeeping. He shall require settlement of accounts to 
be verified by affidavit whenever he thinks proper, and shall 
keep the accounts of the school in a systematic and orderly 
manner. No claim or demand shall be audited unless it is au- 
thorized by law and the rules of the board and be in proper and 
fully itemized form, and unless the amount required for the pay- 
ment of the sum shall have heretofore been appropriated by the 
board. 

22. Need of Publicity in Accounting 

Some such provision as the above, if put into opera- 
tion in all our cities and, through a county unit organi- 

^ Bard, H. E., op. cii., p. 107. 



MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 163 

zation, in all our rural schools, would undoubtedly result 
in great saving. But it should not stop here. There 
should be a careful study of the relation between expen- 
diture and achievement by the schools. Every notable 
increase for additions or innovations should account for 
itself. There should be not only the general fiscal bal- 
ance-sheet, open to all the people, but also a balance- 
sheet showing gain or loss in results. This, too, should 
be for all the people to read. 

While local districts may be empowered, through their 
boards, to levy, collect, and disburse funds, it should 
not be forgotten that all this is a State-wide rather than 
a local interest. The State should see to it that a proper 
accounting and auditing system is provided, perhaps 
more properly acting independently of any board. 



CHAPTER IX 

PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 

The administration of a system of public education in 
the process of instructing children and youth calls for a 
special equipment on the part of those who are to in- 
struct or supervise the work of instruction. In this re- 
spect education is like any other organized undertaking 
which involves in its successful execution both the skill 
of the craftsman and the knowledge and ability of the 
professional man in the application of principles as an 
essential to the accompHshment of the ends in view. 
The unsettled question in all lands as to the kind and 
amount of training required for a teacher or supervisor 
of a certain grade centres in the adjustment of the pro- 
portion of skill and of professional ability which each 
should possess. 

I. Skill and Professional Knowledge Required 

To very many people, even among those who teach, 
the chief, if not the sole, consideration is that of skill. 
To as many others, and especially among the professional 
classes, the only essential requirement is professional 
knowledge. Given a thorough grounding in this, and the 
art will take care of itself. To the educational expert 
called to the responsible task of nominating teachers to 
serve under him who can maintain the standards of effi- 
ciency demanded by a watchful and jealous public, the 

164 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 165 

problem is more acute. He realizes fully the value of 
professional standards in the training of teachers, espe- 
cially as it concerns the forward movement of his edu- 
cational system. But the immediate need he knows 
must require a liberal amount of good craftsmanship. 
He readily appreciates the fact that, other things equal, 
after much blundering and some downright failures, the 
broader professional training will gain the ascendancy if 
it once survives complete shipwreck. But he is also 
keenly alive to the fact that the patrons of his school 
will resent having their children made the objects of 
crude experimentation. Furthermore, he readily com- 
prehends the danger, from such a cause, of reaction 
against the frontier lines of every progressive movement 
he has been able to set going. 

" Give us teachers who can manage the school," say the 
laymen, ''and we care not so very much how extensive 
or how Hmited their preparation may be." ''We need 
men and women of broad education as our teachers," 
say the experts, "but they must know how to use their 
knowledge and to exercise tact according to the particu- 
lar work they are called to do." Yet, still the typical 
academic college professor tilts his head or looks wise. 
"Our fathers and grandfathers before us taught, and 
we ourselves teach," he says, "because we know our 
subjects and are in love with learning for its own sake." 
And so, while the doctors disagree, our schools continue 
to be taught largely by novices in the art of teaching. 
In many cases even our supervisors are without that 
wisdom concerning the work they are called to direct 
which they must win, if at all, through experimenting. 



166 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

2. Public Policy to Train Teachers at Public 
Expense 

All of the States in the Union are now committed to 
the poHcy and practice of training teachers at pubHc 
expense. The people generally, and the educational pub- 
lic in particular, readily recognize the right and the ne- 
cessity of such training in order successfully to maintain 
an efficient system of pubHc education. We have our 
State normal schools and teachers' colleges, our univer- 
sity departments and schools of education, and, in many 
instances, educational courses in high schools, to say 
nothing of our teachers' institutes and the numerous 
voluntary associations of teachers for mutual betterment 
of their work. Still the situation is far from satisfactory. 
It is not even moderately so, except in a few States where 
greater progress has been made toward the solution of 
this difficult problem. 

3. Relative Importance of Skill and Knowledge 

It is probably true, as suggested a short time ago by 
Elmer E. Brown, then United States Commissioner of 
Education,^ that in the earlier stages of education skill is 
relatively of greater importance, while in the later years 
of schooling, knowledge on the part of the teacher is the 
major consideration. May we not also affirm as a prin- 
ciple that all grades of teaching, no matter how great 
the teacher's skill, will be materially strengthened by the 
fullest practicable degree of mastery of one's subject 
and of the theory of its value and function as a factor 
in education? 

The converse to this last principle should also be true — 

^Education, vol. 29, pp. 1-6, "Distinctive Functions of University, 
College and Normal School in the Preparation of Teachers." 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 167 

that no matter how well any one who teaches may know 
the subject or the materials of education, he will still be 
a better teacher if he has somehow acquired reasonable 
skill or facility in the art of teaching. The majority of 
our young teachers begin their work in rural or village 
schools where they receive very little or no assistance 
in the form of intelligent supervision. To these, experi- 
ence may or may not bring any real skill in the art of 
teaching. To acquire such training they need expert 
guidance from some one who carefully observes their 
work from day to day. The case is practically the 
same, in varying degrees, with regard to instruction in 
our colleges. The lower classes of undergraduates, more 
in need of the skilled teacher's guidance than perhaps 
at any other time in their school experience, are turned 
over to the young, inexperienced instructors to practise 
on until they, too, have acquired some skill as crafts- 
men in their field. True economy in keeping up the 
supply of teachers may very consistently demand that 
all teachers have some training under experts who can 
give their time to a study of the student-teacher's work, 
offering specific suggestions and criticisms as they may 
be needed. 

4. Training of Teachers in High Schools 

With these principles before us we may now proceed 
to discuss the kinds of training which the different types 
of schools for the preparation of teachers may best offer 
and under what conditions. It is a fact readily estab- 
lished by statistics that a considerable proportion of 
our teachers of elementary schools receive in the high 
school all the preparation they ever get for teaching. In 
most cases this is training only in knowledge without 
even the theory of teaching included. The high school 



168 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

is the home school. Many of those desiring to teach 
are from families in moderate circumstances if not rank- 
ing among the poorer classes. They cannot afford the 
cost of a year or more away from home at a normal school. 
If they teach, therefore, they must make use of the 
home school at least for their initial preparation. And 
usually this is the part of their preparation which deter- 
mines their success or failure once for all. 

As a rule, we get good teachers from among such can- 
didates, and society cannot afford, therefore, to make 
teaching inaccessible to them. Furthermore, it would 
be impracticable, for some time to come, at least, for our 
normal schools and colleges to prepare enough teachers 
to meet the demand. It seems inevitable that the high 
schools should have an important place in this work. 
Indeed, there is ample ground for believing that one of 
the surest and most essential means to progress in the 
work of our elementary schools is to be found in the 
establishment of many more and better high schools' 
free to all classes. 

What, then, should be the kind of training offered by 
our high schools as preparation for teaching? Evidently 
they should prepare only for elementary work. This 
should include a study of the most important pedagog- 
ical principles involved in the teaching of elementary 
subjects and in managing a schoolroom. Some well- 
directed observational work should be given and, if pos- 
sible, at least a few opportunities at actual teaching with 
or without the presence of the regular teacher. 

Provision should be made by the State for aiding such 
high schools in a county as are strong enough to offer 
teachers' courses and every possible facility provided 
for making this training as effective as possible. Special 
emphasis should be placed upon the needs and condi- 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 169 

tions in rural schools, since most of those going out to 
teach from our high schools are likely to begin their 
work in the country districts. 

5. Normal Schools Typical Training-Schools 

The typical American institution for the preparation 
of elementary teachers is the normal school. This is an 
institution to be found in nearly all our States, varying 
in number for each State from one to eighteen. The 
States making the largest provision for normal-school 
training are : New York, 18 ; Pennsylvania, 1 7 ; Wisconsin, 
15; Massachusetts, 11; and Maine, 10. A total of 196 
public normal schools were reported for all the States in 
1910. These schools employed, in all, 3,185 teachers for 
normal students and 1,629 for other departments, making 
a total instructional force of 4,814 persons. There were 
enrolled in these public normal schools 79,546 students 
in normal departments. In all departments not includ- 
iang model schools there were enrolled 113,011 students. 
The number of normal graduates for the year was 13,725. 
This scarcely more than equals the annual increase^ in 
the number of teachers employed, to say nothing of the 
very large number dropping out of the ranks each year. 

The standard of work in these institutions varies 
widely; but the general scope of the work seems to 
be about the same in all. The elementary subjects 
are reviewed as a basis for pedagogical consideration. 
The academic courses of high-school grade are usually 
taught. More recently the manual arts and agriculture 
have been added. In many of the normal schools busi- 
ness courses are offered. Along professional Knes ele- 
mentary courses are given in psychology, the principles 

1 The average annual increase for the three years ending in 1909 was 
10,738. 



170 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

of education, history of education, school management, 
and methods of treatment of the different subjects to 
be taught. 

In many cases the admission requirements permit 
pupils to enter directly from the completion of the eight 
grades of elementary school work. These may be grad- 
uated at the end of a four-year course. Others enter 
with from one to three years of high-school work, which 
is usually below standard, and may graduate in three 
years, or in some cases two. A regular two-year pro- 
fessional course is offered for graduates of four-year high 
schools. The United States Commissioner of Education, 
in his report for 1910, mentions as evidence of advance- 
ment in the normal schools the following points: (i) 
They require for admission the completion of a four-year 
high-school course or its equivalent; (2) they offer four- 
year degree courses which are cultural as well as pro- 
fessional, parallel to regular college courses; (3) they 
provide for specialization in manual arts, domestic econ- 
omy, agriculture, and the natural sciences. 

Until very recently no attention has been paid by 
normal schools to the peculiar needs of rural schools. 
Even now this is done only in a few instances. The 
typical courses considered are such as are usually offered 
in the grades of a city school, and the training-schools, 
which are standard features in the organization of normal 
schools, are also planned almost solely in the interests 
of the graded system of towns and cities. It seems 
quite evident that somewhere in the educational system 
special attention should be given to the training of an 
adequate number of teachers who could enter into the 
spirit of country life in such a way as to stimulate in- 
terest in and love for the rural industries and for rural 
home life of an improved type. Certainly it will be 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 171 

readily granted that for such vision and leadership as is 
here demanded something more than a mere high-school 
training is required. 

Perhaps the most notable feature about our normal 
schools is to be found in the atmosphere which they 
create for the student body, resulting usually in the in- 
culcation of a fine professional enthusiasm. In this re- 
spect no other institution sending out teachers has yet 
been able to equal them. The singleness of purpose 
which pervades all the work, the serious outlook which 
a definite choice of such a caUing gives, conspire to en- 
gender such a strong professional spirit. 

6. Need and Propriety of Federal Aid for Normal 

Schools 

At present these institutions are maintained chiefly 
at the expense of the States. The situation seems to 
point to the necessity as well as to the right of a Hberal 
contribution toward their support from the Federal 
Government. The service of teachers trained in a given 
State is not to be held within the boundaries of a single 
commonwealth. Very quickly the laws of supply and 
demand operate, and the graduates of any given normal 
school are scattered among many States. They are 
drawn upon also for the island service in Porto Rico 
and the Philippines. Indeed, these schools are more na- 
tional than State when considered in this light. 

7. The City Training-School 

The city training-school is a localized type of normal 
school which contributes almost solely to the supply of 
teachers for the city system of which it is a part. Gen- 
erally speaking, its organization and operation are very 
similar to those of the State schools. In order to insure 



172 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

a sufficient number of properly qualified teachers for the 
elementary grades, many of our larger cities are compelled 
to maintain either a training-school or teachers' college. 
To one looking at the situation as a whole it seems un- 
fortunate that such a condition should exist. In most 
cases where cities train their own teachers, the vast ma- 
jority of those taking the training are from the city 
school system, for which they are trained. This, taken 
in connection with local city certificating of teachers, 
puts a special and exclusive emphasis on whatever is 
local and provincial to the exclusion of those elements 
which should come rather freely from all sources from 
which teachers are supplied, in order to keep the vitality 
of the system at its best. It may be desirable to have 
in each large city a normal school for the training of 
those of the city who may wish to teach. But such an 
institution should be administered independently of the 
city as a State school. Its students should be drawn 
from all sources and its graduates encouraged to go out 
of the home city to teach. 

8. Colleges and Universities as Training-Schools 
for Teachers 

Later in the evolution of our educational policies there 
has developed a new aspect to the problem of training 
teachers for our schools. Before normal schools or high 
schools existed the colleges were sending out a consider- 
able number of men as teachers. At first these men 
taught in the Latin schools and in academies ; but when 
pubKc high schools began to be organized, they also came 
into service in these schools. Among the pioneer settle- 
ments of the great West they often became the first 
teachers of the '"rate" schools, while they and their 
fellow college men in other professions led in laying the 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 173 

foundations for a system of free public schools. As men 
of learning, endowed with something of that altruistic 
spirit which was a dominant force in every early college, 
they simply took up the task of transmitting the 
^'Promethean flame." They had not been trained in 
the art of teaching further than that they had caught 
the spirit of the teacher from close and frequent contact 
with those at whose feet they sat as willing and zealous 
disciples. 

After the Civil War, high schools, normal schools, and 
State universities developed with about equal rapidity 
throughout the Central West. Traditionally, the teach- 
ing of the higher grades in high schools was passed over 
chiefly to the men of college training. As supervisory 
positions increased in number, the men trained in normal 
schools, because of their superior training in educational 
history and theory, readily won the preference of educa- 
tional boards for these positions. 

Meantime pressure was brought for a training that 
should give equal opportunity for such commanding po- 
sitions to those men who still preferred to get their 
preparation for teaching in colleges and universities. 
The higher institutions of the States responded by the 
organization of departments for the teaching of "didac- 
tics," or educational theory and history. Departments 
of psychology generally evolved from this effort, with 
their first courses directed in the interests of those pre- 
paring to teach. 

9. The University School of Education 

Next came the idea of the school of education or 
teachers' college, always with the sole idea of giving 
opportunity to those who sought a college preparation 
for teaching, to get with this training sufficient profes- 



174 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

sional knowledge to fit them for supervisory and high 
school positions. The chief opposition to these schools 
of education, strangely enough, arose from within the 
institutions themselves. For centuries the holder of an 
A.B. degree had been considered amply qualified to 
teach; why should he now be expected to study about 
teaching? Why all this talk about practice teaching and 
a science of education? Was the high ideal of learning 
to be degraded to the mere process of fitting men and 
women for occupations? 

Slowly, very slowly, the school of education is finding 
its place in the work of our great State universities. As 
the work of organizing the principles and history of 
education proceeds, college men are more and more con- 
vinced of the importance of it as a field for research. 
Still more slowly, however, proceeds the recognition of 
the need of the real educational laboratory — the prac- 
tice and model schools for training, observation, and ex- 
perimentation. The situation is not unlike that of agri- 
culture among farmers. For years they laughed at the 
idea of ''book farming." Had not men, their ancestors, 
succeeded for many hundreds of years in the cultivation 
of the soil and in the production of crops and stock? 
Now, at last, after a long struggle, most farmers have 
become convinced that there is a very important gain 
resulting from the application of scientific principles in 
agriculture. So it must be with education. Most of 
the public-school teachers, and especially those charged 
with administrative functions, are already convinced. 
The "doubting Thomases" are among the ranks of the 
professors in our liberal-arts colleges, who seem vaguely 
to fear some loss or change in the significance of the bac- 
calaureate degree in arts, as though a degree is, or ever 
can be, a fixed and immutable measure for all the learn- 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 175 

ing of all ages up to a definite stage in the process of edu- 
cation. Others who oppose the idea are to be found in 
certain normal schools or teachers' colleges. Their fear 
is of the loss of prestige because of something higher 
than they. 

There are great unsolved problems in the field of edu- 
cation which it will take years of patient and careful 
investigation and experimentation to solve. It is prob- 
ably true that some of this can be as well or better done 
by normal schools. Yet the normal schools must ever 
use most of their resources in preparing the vast army of 
teachers for our elementary schools. 

The men and women who seek to prepare at a univer- 
sity for the work of teaching, if we are to place any 
stress at all on their professional training, must be able 
to get this in connection with the institution where they 
study. Besides, in order to carry forward the work of 
investigation, a considerable number must be especially 
trained for this phase of work. There are no other in- 
stitutions so well qualified to give this training as are 
the universities. 

Then, again, the broad development which our ele- 
mentary and high school education is taking on renders 
it essential that he who trains to supervise and develop 
this work should, somewhere in his training, get some- 
thing of that broader outlook which only a university 
is prepared to give. But if universities are to equal 
the normal schools in the inculcation, in the teachers 
they train, of that fine professional spirit of which men- 
tion has been made, some organic structure must be 
provided, perhaps more akin to Teachers College at 
Columbia University. 



176 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

10. What Should Be the Relation of the Three 
Types of Training? 

At the present stage in the progress of this particular 
phase of our educational evolution there is much un- 
certainty and considerable contention as to just what 
should be the relationship of the three types of institu- 
tions — high schools, normal schools, and universities — 
to this work of preparing teachers and also of each to the 
others in the whole field of educational endeavor. Such 
a state of things is not a matter to wonder at nor to 
cause any special concern or heat of debate. It is nat- 
urally to be expected as an episode in the growth of a 
great, new institution which is daily entering into the 
pioneer regions of human experience along educational 
lines. 

What we need to do is to keep in view the one single 
aim: an efficient system of education for a great democ- 
racy which doubtless carries with its ultimate success or 
failure the destinies of the milHons who, as posterity, 
shall inherit the permanent results of our acts. Such 
an aim should readily overshadow and outweigh any and 
all private or personal interests. True, it is very essen- 
tial to the finding of the final truth that each one who 
beUeves he has found some portion of that truth should 
insistently maintain his point of view until others may 
also see and weigh his theory. But all this can best 
be done in a spirit of harmony and good-fellowship. The 
real dangers to be feared as causes which may retard or 
prevent the truth are narrow jealousy or a mean selfish- 
ness which will even resort to questionable means in 
order to secure their ends. 

The whole scheme for the training of our teachers needs 
careful revision and especially unification or co-ordina- 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 177 

tion in the functioning of its different parts. It has been 
said of the normal schools, for instance, that they are 
out of the general currents of educational movement and 
growth. If this is so the connections should be read- 
justed. The normal school really belongs to a part 
of the completed scheme for the university work of a 
State. 

II. Methods of Co-ordinating the University and 
Normal School 

There are two ways in general by which this co-ordi- 
nating and unifying process might be brought about and 
the highest end of this department of our system of public 
education much more readily attained. Probably the 
individual and ununified development of these separate 
factors in a common process has gone about as far as 
it can consistently with the welfare of society both in 
matters of economy and for general effectiveness. The 
two methods of adjustment are these : First, let the edu- 
cators controlling and directing the administrative de- 
velopment of these three types of institutions get to- 
gether in frequent and serious conference, having laid 
aside all minor or ulterior aims, to consider just what the 
larger permanent State and national welfare demands 
and to devise ways and means of bringing it about. Let 
them consider wherein they may co-operate so as to 
avoid waste, or conflict, or dupHcation. For all these 
mighty factors are needed, each at its best, to meet this 
great social demand; and they are all by nature readily 
adapted to being dovetailed into unison. 

If for any reason these educators are not strong enough 
or clear enough of vision to do this — if, in other words, 
there exists a condition demanding arbitration — then 
each State for itself should establish a commission, some- 



178 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

thing like that which has been provided in Scotland/ 
whose function it should be to bring about the adjust- 
ments necessary for complete co-operation in accomphsh- 
ing this great service, second to none, of providing ade- 
quately trained teachers for all grades of our schools 
and for their supervision. 

Not only is such an adjustment needed in individual 
States but also for the nation as a whole. There are 
matters of vital importance to the economy and efficiency 
of the administration of education which wait upon 
some such adjustments among the States. Such a case 
would be the standardizing of requirements for gradua- 
tion from professional courses in normal schools and 
universities, so as to make it possible to have nation- 
wide recognition of certain diplomas from these institu- 
tions as a basis for certification. As in the case of the 
States, so in this larger sense either of the two methods 
mentioned above might be used. But whether in the 
case of State or nation, the plan of mutual agreement 
through conference, if only those most concerned can 
come together in peace, will always be found most ef- 
fective and satisfactory. Under the plan of State con- 
trol through one board, as suggested in chap. VII, such 
a plan of conference and agreement would send up to 
the board a unanimous recommendation, the approval 
of which would be a foregone conclusion. 

12. Training of Teachers in Service 

There is another phase of the training of teachers, but 
one not distinctly a feature of the work of society in es- 
tablishing the schools. This is the training in service 
which teachers get, partly through voluntary associa- 

^ See Snedden, David, "A New Scheme for the Training of Teachers 
in Scotland," Educational Review, 39 : 433-54. 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 179 

tions, partly through work organized and directed by 
the superintendents of schools — State, county, and city — ■ 
and partly through organized effort on the part of the 
State through legislative provisions. The latter is the 
one to be discussed briefly here. The first and second 
really belong to the discussion of the administration of 
instruction, which is still to follow. 

This organized phase of the work comes chiefly under 
the head of teachers' institutes. Forty-three of the 
States make some legal provision for institutes, and in 
the five remaining States, Connecticut, Maine, Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, institutes are 
held voluntarily. These gatherings may be yearly or 
oftener. They mostly continue for one week, although 
in a number of instances they are in session two and 
sometimes even four weeks in succession. In most States 
teachers who attend an institute during the term of 
their regular employment are allowed to do so on pay 
the same as for teaching. Minnesota seems to be the 
only exception to this practice. In some States, as In- 
diana and Ohio, teachers receive regular pay for atten- 
dance even when the institute is held in vacation. In 
twelve States institutes are supported wholly by State 
appropriations; in seven others wholly by county appro- 
priations. In nine States fees are the sole means of 
support, while in the other twenty States there are va- 
rious combinations of either two or all of these three 
methods. 

The management of institutes, especially those legally 
estabHshed, is either by the State directly or by coun- 
ties, or by co-operation of the two. In the earher days 
of institutes they were conducted more generally for 
regular academic and professional instruction. As high 
schools and normal schools have multiplied, such instruc- 



180 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

tion has become less needed, and as a result the term 
has shortened and the general plan of the institute has 
changed. Now it may be said that the chief aim every- 
where is stimulation and inspiration of teachers to higher 
ideals of teaching and to a finer appreciation of the dig- 
nity and importance of the teacher's work. 

The usual method is to employ one or more special 
lecturers of marked ability in expounding educational 
ideals and principles. Until recently the general prac- 
tice has been to have all grades and classes of teachers 
meet in one group for the lectures. More recently, how- 
ever, is seen a marked tendency to differentiate the work, 
as in the case of New York, where there are rural, graded, 
and high-school sections. Some such plan of organiza- 
tion, at least for part of the work of each day, has a 
strong tendency to increase the interest and effectiveness 
of the work. 

Somewhat differentiated from the county or district 
institute is the summer normal school provided for in 
some States, as in Louisiana, Minnesota, South Dakota, 
and Texas. These are for a longer period and are pro- 
vided especially to enable teachers to meet specific re- 
quirements in the way of professional training. In some 
instances institute work has degenerated into a kind of 
cheap entertainment type. But in the main these edu- 
cational gatherings have played and still are playing 
an important part in the general educational uplift. 
There is need, however, of some more definite standards 
for measuring their achievement, for determining relative 
values in the different methods of handling them as an 
educational means. 

In only a few of the States as yet is any effective pro- 
vision made for the licensing of those who are to be per- 
mitted to lecture or instruct in institutes. Extreme care 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 181 

in this, as in the selection of teachers always, is the es- 
sential thing. The best method for such licensing thus 
far in use seems to be by a non-political State board, 
which should be not a board of laymen but of experts. 
Too much money and energy are involved in this great 
educational mechanism to permit for a single session 
any wasteful or ineffective use of the time and means de- 
voted to its purposes. 



CHAPTER X 

THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 

There are two ways by which the members of society 
secure service from their fellows: one is to purchase it 
directly, as a transaction between individuals or between 
the individual and an organized group of individuals; 
in the other case the social group as a whole calls cer- 
tain of its members to perform special services to the 
community, the State, or the nation. This call may 
come by the direct franchise of the people or through an 
intermediary body of men selected to look after some 
special department of the interests common to the social 
group. 

I. Method of Selection of Teachers 

Generally speaking, where the selection of the service 
is somewhat involved or where the service to be rendered 
is of such a character as to require special care in the 
selection of those who are to serve the second form of 
call by the social group is employed. This is true, in 
the main, in the selection of those who deal directly 
with the educational problems of society. The chief 
exceptions are to be found in the selection of those called 
to have the oversight of the larger educational units, as 
State and county superintendents. As has been inti- 
mated in a previous chapter, it is believed that better 
results might be had if these officials were also chosen 
by the intermediary process. Indeed, the experience of 

182 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 183 

States where such a plan has been tried seems to support 
strongly such belief. 

2. State-wide System of Selection Needed 

The provision by society for the special training of 
teachers for their work in itself implies a selection and 
setting aside for this peculiar and vitally important ser- 
vice. We have seen that in the development of the school 
it was first local in character, and the selection of teachers 
was therefore entirely local and altogether by laymen 
rather than upon expert recommendation of any sort. 
Even in the licensing of persons as teachers the layman 
had the initiative. Later, as our educational system has 
developed, the tendency has been to cling to the old 
traditional custom of local selection. Only by slow de- 
grees of advancement have the people come to under- 
stand that the service of the teacher is general rather 
than local and that, consequently, the mechanism for 
selecting teachers should be at least State-wide in its 
character and scope, and that the selection should be 
based as far as possible on expert judgment. 

In the choosing and setting aside of individuals for 
other departments of pubhc service the movement to- 
ward central control has usually been much more rapid. 
In military and naval affairs, for instance, the world-wide 
practice of State and national selective agencies has been 
recognized practically from the beginning. In civil af- 
fairs we have general State and national civil service 
with licensing based on examinations by experts. As 
examples we may note the various lines of expert service 
required by the State and national governments, ad- 
mission of lawyers to the practice of their profession; 
likewise Hcensing for the practice of medicine, pharmacy, 
nursing, architecture, etc. 



184 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

If any advantage whatever could come from a more 
general and expert control in selecting and certificating 
teachers, surely this branch of service should demand 
that immediate adjustments be made in that direction. 
Next to national existence itself is the importance of our 
general educational system in its relation to national 
well-being. The peculiarly intimate relationship of the 
teacher's work to the physical, mental, and moral health 
of society is well known to all. Important as are our 
military safeguards, our expert civil service, and the 
other lines of professional service mentioned above, not 
any or all of them can be said to be so far-reaching, so 
intimately essential to the very fountains of our national 
strength and prosperity, as are the means of insuring 
that general intelligence and morality for which, largely, 
the teachers of our schools must stand. 

3. Magnitude of the Teaching Service 

This is but repeating in another form the trite no- 
tion of the very great importance, both State and na- 
tional, of the service rendered by our teachers. The mag- 
nitude of this service may be put also in an economic 
way, although the figures representing this value can 
scarcely be said to bear a just ratio to the importance of 
the service rendered when compared with the economic 
expression of other branches of social service. 

The cost of our military and naval defences in times 
of peace, when compared with our school statistics, will 
serve to illustrate the statement made in the last para- 
graph. The cost of maintaining our army and navy 
for the year 1908-9 was approximately $207,000,000. 
The personnel of these two forces numbered 138,276 for 
the year 19 10. Put on a per-capita basis this would 
mean about $1,500 per person. 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 185 

The total amount paid public-school teachers and su- 
perintendents for the year 1908-9 was $237,013,243. 
The number of teachers employed in the public schools 
for the same year was 506,453. This put upon a per- 
capita basis gives us only $468 per person, or less than 
one-third the cost per person of our general defensive 
and police service in times of peace. 

Even with this comparatively low per-capita cost, 
however, we must not forget that the expenditure is 
vast; and that, taken with the tremendous social values 
at stake, the situation calls for the most careful selection 
of those who are to teach. There is involved in the 
problem not only the economic significance which the 
above figures indicate but also the question of the rela- 
tive conservation or waste of the growing time of child- 
hood and youth. 

4. Urgent Need of Better Methods of Selection 

The work of teaching, with social efficiency as the aim 
of education, calls for the highest possible adaptation 
to the special work to be accomplished as well as the 
highest degree of skill in its performance. Upon the suc- 
cess or failure of the work of our teachers are to depend 
largely the habits, knowledge, and ideals with which our 
young men and women are to take their places in the 
social ranks. In short, we may say that, ultimately, 
upon the degree of efficiency of our methods of selecting 
the teachers of our children depends the upbuilding or 
undoing of the nation — nothing less. 

In the face of such conditions we are no longer left 
in doubt as to the need of great care in the selection of 
those who are to teach and to supervise our schools. 
The wonder is that we have hesitated so long and still 
hesitate, some of us, to do the obviously necessary thing 



186 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

— to see to the establishing of a mechanism whereby we 
may have the greatest possible security in regard to the 
capabihty of our teachers of children and youth. The 
trouble is that there is a considerable number of good 
people who are afraid that by setting up certain recog- 
nized standards as to the quaUfications of teachers we 
may thereby leave out some very desirable individuals 
who have a strong native abihty to teach but are not 
able in the ordinary way to meet the scholarship and 
professional standards usually set up. These people 
seem to believe in making rules out of exceptions rather 
than providing for the exceptional cases under the rules. 
They forget, perhaps, that standards wisely enforced for 
a generation will practically eliminate any such excep- 
tional class because those who come after will take heed 
and prepare to meet the requirements. 

5. Present Practice too Cumbersome 

As a result of present practice we have a very cum- 
bersome and complex arrangement for the Hcensing of 
those who are to teach. In portions of New England, 
particularly in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the old 
local or town system of certificating is still in use. Under 
this plan the certificates are usually issued by laymen on 
an examination which is mostly oral and altogether per- 
functory and inadequate as a means of testing the com- 
petency of those to be considered eligible to teach. 

6. City Certification — Its Weakness 

In most of the States some of the cities, acting under 
special charter, are permitted to determine the certifi- 
cation of those who are to teach in the city system of 
schools. Generally this privilege is confined to the great 
cities. In some States, however, this plan appHes to 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 187 

cities and towns quite generally, as in the State of Kan- 
sas. In these cases the examinations are usually con- 
ducted by experts, although under some State systems 
the examining boards are composed partly of laymen. 
Usually the standards of scholarship and professional 
training maintained by the larger cities are higher than 
those represented by either county or State certification. 
In some instances, however, where the State require- 
ments are brought to a high level of efficiency the 
cities voluntarily relinquish the practice and accept the 
certification by State authority. 

The chief weakness of the city system is the building 
up of a local or provincial school of educational theory 
and practice through the somewhat exclusive methods 
used in filhng the teaching ranks. This is emphasized 
by the presence, in most of the cities concerned, of a local 
city training-school. Those cities which are able to make 
use of a State system are largely freed from this tendency, 
since they may draw their supply of teachers freely from 
the State at large. 

7. County Certification 

Next to the town or city system comes county certifica- 
tion. Of this there are two general types: the strict county 
system, which leaves the whole matter of examining and 
certificating teachers in the hands of the county com- 
missioner or superintendent. This plan, because it in- 
cludes the larger unit, and because the examinations are, 
in a measure, by experts, is a great improvement over 
the town system. But it still falls short of highest effi- 
ciency in several particulars. It still makes uniformity 
for a State impossible. Teachers are hampered unnec- 
essarily in transferring from one part of the State to an- 
other. It is wasteful of community resources and of the 



188 



ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 













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194 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

time and money of teachers. It keeps the standards of 
preparation too low. Only one State, Delaware, now 
adheres to the strict county plan. 

Then there is the modified county plan by which the 
State has more or less to do with the certification in 
counties. 

In the States making use of this modified county plan 
the nature of the modification varies.^ It may be by 
transfer of papers from one county to another; by send- 
ing out to counties uniform questions from the State 
department; by general interchange of county certifi- 
cates, either voluntarily or by legal compulsion; by the 
forwarding of papers to the State superintendent for 
validation or indorsement by him. All of these modi- 
fications are efforts to ehminate the grosser evils of the 
local system. 

The following States in the above table provide, 
with or without restrictions, for transfer or indorsement 
of certificates in other counties: California, Colorado, 
Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, 
Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, 
New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, 
South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee. 

8. State Certification 

State plans of certification vary from the State's par- 
ticipation in the modified county plans mentioned above 
to absolute State administration. There are fifteen 
States which may be said to come under the latter class. 
Most of the States, to be exact, twenty-eight, where the 
county plan prevails also issue from the State depart- 
ment or through a State board certificates of a higher 

1 Cubberley, E. P., Fifth Year Book, Nat. Society for Study of Edu- 
cation, part II, pp. 19-22. 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 195 

grade valid throughout the State, and usually for longer 
periods than those issued in counties. The final goal to 
this system is the Hfe certificate. The advantages of 
State control in the issuing of licenses to teach are: (i) 
general uniformity of requirements as to standards of 
scholarship and professional training; (2) the wider 
range of validity secured; (3) the extension of the term 
of validity, thus reducing the number of examinations. 

9. Lack of Conformity to Any System among States 

Even State systems as now organized have their weak 
points. There are no common standards among the 
several States. The conditions of granting are compara- 
tively lax in some States, thus making the practice of 
interchange between States a matter of careful investi- 
gation and discrimination. As our teachers move about 
freely from State to State, this again is a drawback. It 
is gratifying to note that this situation is receiving at- 
tention at the hands of the National Education Asso- 
ciation and also by the U. S. Commissioner of Education. 
It is to be hoped that on the essential points grounds of 
agreement among the States may be found, so that cer- 
tificates may be readily transferable from one State to 
another, if, indeed, they are not validated by a central 
board, thus making them good anywhere in the United 
States. 

The large number and variety of State certificates is- 
sued makes it difficult to express these in ordinary tabu- 
lar form. For this reason we give the following partially 
tabulated description: 

1. Whole number of different kinds, 399. 

2. Number of States issuing some form of life certifi- 

cate, 39. 



196 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

3. Number of States issuing certificates of limited 

duration but subject to renewal, 33. Number 
renewing only on re-examination, 4. One State 
extends for attendance at some school. 

4. There are 3 States in which the limited-term certifi- 

cates are non-renewable and 10 in which the 
lower-grade certificates are not renewable. In 
14 States provision is made for extending the 
higher grades into life certificates. Usually 
permits and temporary certificates are non- 
renewable. 

5. The usual forms of certificates are life: first, sec- 

ond, and third grades; professional, supervi- 
sory, high-school, elementary, special, kinder- 
garten. Fourteen States issue some form of 
professional certificate, 9 a supervisor's certifi- 
cate, 14 issue high-school certificates, 14 kin- 
dergarten certificates, and 13 make all State 
certificates (except certain special certificates) 
good for teaching in any public school. 

6. The basis on which these certificates are issued 

also varies greatly. Life certificates are issued 
on examination, or on college or normal-school 
diploma, or a combination of examination and 
diploma. Twenty-nine out of the 39 issue 
wholly or in part on examination, and 27 re- 
cognize, in some way, college or normal-school 
certificates. Some experience, varying from 
fifteen months to ten years, is required in 
nearly all cases, the average being between 
four and five years. 
Limited-term certificates are usually based on exami- 
nations. In some instances diplomas are ac- 
cepted. The examinations usually cover the 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 197 

subjects taught in high school, or certain groups 
of them, together with some test along profes- 
sional lines. These examinations are conducted 
by the State superintendent, the State board of 
education, or a State board of examiners. 

When we consider the present chaotic condition such 
a consummation as suggested above seems Hke a far 
call, an ideal too high for attainment. Yet when once 
the clinging to the traditional practice of local control 
in certification is relinquished the greatest obstacle will 
be removed. It rests largely with those engaged in 
educational work to determine standards as to training, 
probably the most fundamental thing of all; duration 
and extent of the validity of certificates; the relative 
importance of training and examinations as a basis for 
granting certificates. Then, if by some power of persua- 
sion the fee system can be abolished, each State making 
provision for all the expense connected with the issuing 
of teachers' Hcenses, we shall have attained practically 
the fundamental conditions upon which to base a free 
interchange, among the States, of all certificates of 
teachers and supervisors of our schools. 

10. Recognition of Institutional Training as a Basis 
for Certification 

One of the most vital questions still remaining un- 
settled with reference to the certification of teachers is 
that of the recognition to be given to the diplomas of 
various institutions as evidence of adequate preparation 
for teaching, both as to scholarship and professionally. 
It would seem to need no argument to demonstrate the 
propriety of the recognition, by any State, of the prep- 
aration of teachers in institutions or departments of in- 



198 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

stitutions maintained by the State for that purpose. As 
E. P. Cubberley puts it: ''There is no vahd excuse for 
compelling a graduate of a State normal school to pass 
a county examination before she can teach." ^ Yet it 
is still true that in a number of the States teachers first 
entering upon the work, even though normal-school grad- 
uates, must pass the county examination in order to get 
a certificate of inferior grade and for short duration, 
while in others the holder of such a diploma may at once 
receive a life certificate to teach anywhere in the State. 

It is likewise true that, in several States, college and 
university graduates must pass county examinations to 
teach or supervise until they have the experience de- 
manded for State certification. In some cases these 
examinations bear little or no relationship to the actual 
teaching work which the candidates are to do. It is, to 
say the least, an anomaly thus to permit the repudia- 
tion of the work of institutions established and main- 
tained by the State solely, or in part at least, for the 
proper preparation of teachers. This condition of things 
illustrates, in a very striking way, the undue value which 
has been placed upon the examination as a test for fit- 
ness tp teach. 

On the other hand, the granting of a life certificate 
without future condition other than the power of revo- 
cation usually vested in the superintendent or board 
which issues it is, perhaps, as bad an extreme in the 
opposite direction. The safeguarding of our schools 
would seem to be more nearly attained if renewals, 
based on clear evidence of professional advancement 
and growth satisfactory both in kind and degree, were 
required once in five or ten years. 

^In Fifth Year Book, Nat. Society for the Study of Education, 
part II, p. 76. 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 199 

11. Summary of Conditions Needed for Efficiency 

To summarize, we need to secure about the following 
conditions in order to insure reasonable efficiency in that 
general scheme of selecting teachers which we call licens- 
ing or certification: 

1. Proper standards of scholarship and professional 

training as evidenced (a) by the preparation of 
candidates and (b) by examinations conducted 
by experts and uniform throughout a given 
State. 

2. Greater uniformity both as to the grades and kinds 

of certificates, including age limit, time, and 
extent of validity. 

3. The assumption by the State of all cost involved in 

certification. 

4. The greatest possible freedom of interchange of 

certificates among States. 

12. Specific Selection by Boards and Supervisors 

The function of selecting teachers, however, does not 
cease with their proper certification. By such a setting 
apart of those found to be fitted, in a few of the more 
general qualifications, for the work of teaching, society 
essays to protect boards of education against a large 
number of incompetent individuals who would otherwise 
seek employment in the schools. There still remains the 
selecting of teachers for particular schools and for specific 
lines of work therein. First of all, there are to be chosen 
the supervisors of the work. These are of two classes — 
general and special. The general superintendents may 
be for the State, the county, the township, or district. 
In the former two cases it is still customary, in a majority 
of States, to choose by popular election, these offices 



200 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

usually ranking as of minor significance in the general 
political scheme of the State or county, and the selections 
depending upon the hazards of the usual machinery of 
partisan politics. We have already suggested the desira- 
bility of an intermediary board with appointive power. ^ 
While the members of such boards must usually be 
laymen rather than experts, yet they are apt to be more 
carefully selected with reference to their fitness for the 
duties they are to perform and they may be entirely 
non-partisan in character. 

In the case of the town or district superintendent the 
choice is almost universally vested in a board nearly 
always non-partisan in make-up although generally also 
composed of laymen. 

Special supervisors are chosen in a similar manner, 
except that usually nominations are made by the gen- 
eral superintendent acting in the capacity of educational 
expert for the board. Such supervisors are those of 
kindergartens, primary grades, music, drawing, physical 
culture or play, manual training, domestic science, and 
arts. Special supervisors are sometimes employed under 
the State department of supervision, and very generally 
in cities. With the adoption of county units of control 
for rural education they would be employed also by 
county boards. Another type of supervising agency is 
seen in the ward principal of a city system. His ap- 
pointment is usually upon the recommendation of the 
superintendent. 

13. Importance of This Function of Boards of 
Education 

By far the most important function of educational 
boards, either rural or urban, is the selection and ap- 
pointment of teachers for the various teaching positions 
.1 Chap. VII. 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 201 

under their administration. It requires a careful dis- 
criminating in order to secure for each place to be filled 
the most desirable teacher available. To base the choice 
on certification alone will not do. This sort of selection 
only expresses preference on the side of general qualifi- 
cations. When it comes to the particular school and 
the particular form of teaching required, other grounds 
for judging, such as the special subjects in which the 
teacher is prepared, her personal quahfications, etc., 
come under consideration. These are matters which 
cannot always be clearly determined by an examination 
nor by personal interviews. Expert judgment by those 
who have seen the teacher at work either in a training- 
school or as a regular teacher, if given fully and clearly, 
is the very best basis upon which to determine a candi- 
date's fitness for a given place. 

Of course, this takes for granted that ordinary stand- 
ards of scholarship and professional knowledge have 
been taken care of. This much certification ought to 
accomplish. The problem is serious enough for boards 
and superintendents without having to question these 
two fundamental points. No city, for instance, should 
find it necessary to duplicate the machinery for examin- 
ing and certificating teachers. The State should take 
care of this, leaving the city free to select teachers at 
large rather than to be compelled to become provincial 
and resort to the inbreeding process of the city training- 
school. 

14. Expert Observation of Work as a Basis for 
Selection 

The most effective way of determining a teacher's 
fitness for a place is by expert observation of her work 
either in a regular school situation or in a well-conducted 



202 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

training-school. The next best basis for judging a 
teacher is through the confidential statements of experts 
who have, in some capacity, supervised or inspected her 
work. The least desirable, and one rapidly becoming 
obsolete, is on the basis of general testimonial letters 
which, to be comprehended, must often be read '^ be- 
tween lines," and which are often outlawed by reason of 
their original dates. For the high school the appoint- 
ment committees of colleges and universities are com- 
ing to be looked upon as most dependable and helpful. 
A well-organized, conscientious teachers' agency is also 
capable of rendering valuable service both to would-be 
employers and those seeking employment. 

The selection of teachers for rural and village schools 
is almost entirely by laymen. Often it occurs that Httle 
or no attention is paid to a person's real quahfications 
as teacher. Frequently it happens that a pretty-faced 
girl or a stalwart and physically masterful youth will 
win an appointment with scarcely any further considera- 
tion. In some instances this situation is improving, 
however. It is a good indication of progress when the 
superintendent or commissioner of a county is called 
upon to advise with boards of directors or trustees in the 
selection of teachers, or when such an official will go out 
of his way to suggest a suitable candidate or put the 
appointing authorities on guard against a possible mis- 
take in choosing. 

In the towns and smaller cities the local superinten- 
dent is now often called in to advise with the board in 
filling vacancies in the teaching corps. This is as it 
should be. The man who is to be held responsible for 
the successful operation of the entire system should cer- 
tainly be entitled to some voice in the selection of those 
who are to work with him. It is true that greater re- 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 203 

sponsibility on his part is thus assumed; but the chief 
reason for the higher salary paid him is his abihty and 
obligation to render just such expert service. 

15. Methods and Difficulties of Large Cities 

In the larger systems of our great cities the business 
of nominating and appointing teachers is a much more 
compKcated affair. In either case the constant struggle 
must be against the appointment through "pull" or 
poKtical influence of those having Kttle or no other 
claim on which to base their appointment. The fre- 
quent resort which is had to such means in some of our 
great centres exercises a baneful influence upon many of 
our young men and young women who are just entering 
upon the work of teaching. They get the notion, some- 
how, that the matter of "influence" is the all-important 
thing in securing an appointment. The result is almost 
inevitably a lower standard of professional aims and 
ideals on their part, a condition which usually marks 
the "beginning of the end" of their teaching careers. 
Fortunate indeed is it for the cause of education that 
most of our teachers are willing to base their claims for 
appointment solely upon professional training and ability. 

A little correspondence with fifty of our larger cities 
has revealed some very interesting facts as to the basis 
upon which teachers are chosen for specific assignment 
to places in the schools. Thirty-eight out of the fifty 
have been heard from. Of these thirty-eight cities 
twenty-eight certificate their teachers, although not all 
do so exclusively. Twenty- three have city training- 
schools or teachers' colleges. Four of the cities train 
both high-school and elementary teachers. The training 
of kindergarten teachers is also provided for in most of 
the twenty-three cities which have public kindergartens- 



204 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

Three other cities not counted in the twenty-three have 
normal or training classes. Four cities, Los Angeles, 
Oakland, Spokane, and Nashville, neither certificate nor 
train their own teachers. In New York, Virginia, and 
California State certification is quite generally accepted 
by the cities. In Philadelphia the training-school was 
recently abolished after an existence of twenty-two years. 
By far the most important information received has 
to do with the methods of appointment in use, with 
especial reference to the basis for selecting teachers for 
particular positions. It is certainly true that the prob- 
lem here confronted by education boards may be greatly 
simphfied by a proper guarding of the two functions 
suggested in the facts just given. But there still remain 
diflaculties to be gotten over. The tabular presentation 
given on pp. 205-207 will give a pretty good idea of the 
methods in use in our large cities in the selecting and 
appointment of teachers as this function concerns the 
actual work to be done. 

16. Examples of Methods Used by Cities 

In order to present more concretely the method of 
procedure in appointing teachers the plans followed by 
a few of the larger cities are given here more in detail. 
Following is that for Denver: 

The teachers are elected by the board of education, but first 
must be present at the examination conducted by the superin- 
tendent of city schools. The scholarship examination embraces 
orthography, reading, arithmetic, English grammar and com- 
position, geography, American history, elementary sciences, 
theory and practice of teaching, English literature, elements of 
vocal music, and elementary drawing. All candidates who are 
graduates of the Colorado Normal School, the University of 
Colorado, or other educational institutions of equal rank and 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 



205 



City 



Atlanta 
Baltimore 



Birmingham 

Ala. 
Boston 
Cambridge 



Chicago 



Cincinnati 



Denver 



Detroit 



i2 


CityTrain- 


^ 


ing-School 


1 


?*>>, 


^^ 


H 
1 


B'3 


o « 


^ 




11 


•• 


X 






X 


1 


X 


X 
X 




X 


X 




X 




X 


X 







Basis for Selection and Appointment 
of Teachers 



Scholarship, personality, etc. 
On competitive examinations for 
elementary grades. These are in 
"training and knowledge" and "apt- 
ness to teach." The latter is deter- 
mined by actual teaching as substi- 
tutes. 

Eligible list based on formal applica- 
tions, with private correspondence. 
According to normal grades. 
Elementary by record in training- 
school. High school on experience 
from other schools. 
Elementary by graduation from 
training-school or State normal 
schools. High schools on examina- 
tion. Eligible lists are made from 
these sources. Principals select from 
these lists in regular order and nomi- 
nate. Superintendent recommends 
and board approves. 
Elementary on basis of two years of 
normal training beyond high-school 
graduation with record for practice 
teaching. High-school or college 
graduation with professional train- 
ing and two years' experience in pub- 
lic-school teaching. 
High school: degree from standard 
college — selected by high-school 
board of examiners. Elementary on 
examination by superintendent. 
From eligible list made up of gradu- 
ates of city or State normal schools, 
those holding State life certificates, 
or on examination. 



206 



ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 





J3 


City Train- 






1 


ing-SchooI 




b>> 


f«^ 


City 


H 




to cd 

51 


Basis for Selection and Appointment 
of Teachers 




^ 


w| 


ww 






6 


&s 


11 




Fall River 




X 




In order of graduation and on ability 
shown in substitute work. 


Grand Rapids 


X 






On recommendation of superinten- 
dent. 


Indianapolis 


X 


X 




Merit only. 


Jersey City 


X 


X 




In order of ranking on eligible lists. 


Kansas City 


X 






Examinations, recommendations, and 
such information as can be gathered. 


Los Angeles 








Merit based on competitive examina- 
tions. Personal, political, or social 
influence forbidden. 


Louisville 


X 


X 




On ranking for normal-school gradu- 
ates. On successful experience in 
supplying departmental schools. Also 
college graduates after probation of 
two or three months. 


Lowell 


X 






In order of graduation from training- 
school. 


Memphis 


X 






Examination grade, experience, and 
training. 


Milwaukee 


X 






Select from eligibles one best fitted 
for position. 


Minneapolis 


X 






Reliable reports on preparation of 
teacher. 


Nashville 








Elected from eligible list — assigned 
by instruction committee and super- 
intendent. 


Newark 


X 


X 




According to rating on graduation 
from city normal school. 


New Haven 


X 






From State normal graduates or by 
recommendation of superintendent. 


New Orleans 


X 


X 




Grade made on final examination. 


New York 


X 


X 




Eligible lists prepared by board of 
examiners — according to ranking. 
For high schools separate eligible 
lists by subjects. Principals select 
according to subject. 



THE SELECTION OF TEACHERS 



207 



City 



Oakland 

Omaha 

Paterson 



Philadelphia 
Providence 

Richmond 

Rochester 



San Francisco 



Saint Louis 



Seattle 
Spokane 

Syracuse 

Washington 

Worcester 



CityTrain- 
ing-School 



X 



cO W g 



E 



X 



WW 

^1 



X 



Basis for Selection and Appointment 
of Teachers 



On merit determined by references. 
Discretion of superintendent. 
Elementary by rank of graduation 
from city training-schools, high 
school on competitive examination. 
In order of standing on ehgible lists. 
Upon record made in training for one 
year. 

Superintendent recommends, com- 
mittee nominates. 

Superintendent nominates principals 
from first ten names certified by 
board of examiners. Superintendent 
and principals constitute board for 
nominating teachers. 
After probationary term of two years, 
on recommendation of superinten- 
dent. 

Grade teachers from graduates of 
teachers' college, by rank and order 
of graduation. High school and 
special by specific information con- 
cerning applicants. 
On merit. 

Select the best obtainable for money 
from any source. 

In order of standing on merit lists. 
In order of ranking on eligible lists. 
First on examination. Those exam- 
ined must be graduates of a four- 
year high school and of a normal 
school with a three years' course. 
Examination marks are averaged 
with those of experience. Names 
are put on the waiting list in order of 
marks from this averaging. 



208 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

character are required to take only the examination in English 
grammar and composition. 

The scholarship examination is impersonal. Candidates who 
have reached a satisfactory rank in the scholarship test will ap- 
pear before the board of education and be asked for testimonials, 
account of experience and references. They will be given rank 
in accordance with the judgment of the board of education, the 
scholarship examination obtained being an equal factor in the 
computation. 

Teachers who have taught in these schools and who have 
absented themselves from the work for one year or more will 
be obliged to re-enter the examination in order to obtain a legal 
certificate. 

Scholarship alone will not produce a certificate. The record 
of the candidate, with her accredited experience in public-school 
work, the scholarship standing as rated at the examination, and 
the personal appearance are the chief elements considered. 

A physician's certificate of good health is required of candi- 
dates before engagement. 

From the list of those who hold certificates vacancies are 
filled, the selection being made in the order of the standing at 
examination, thus making the trial somewhat competitive in 
character. 

Teachers are not confirmed in their appointment before the 
close of the twelfth week of service. When the appointment is 
confirmed the engagement is likely to be permanent, subject to 
the rules and regulations of the board. 

The plan followed by the Oakland, Cal., board is also 
interesting : 

1. It is hereby made the duty of the city superintendent of 
schools to seek out and request teachers of exceptional ability to 
make applications for positions in the Oakland school depart- 
ment. 

2. All candidates for positions in the Oakland school depart- 
ment must submit with their application blank a certificate 
signed by the director of health of the school department, or 
some other person authorized by him, showing that the holder 
is sound in health and physically able to do effective teaching. 



CHAPTER XI 
PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT OF SCHOOLS 

I. Magnitude of the Problem 

Not least among the problems of boards of education 
in preparing for the active work of the school is that of 
a suitable physical equipment. The total valuation of 
school property for all State systems in 1909-10 was 
$1,100,007,512. This makes a considerable investment, 
even when scattered over so large an area, in property 
to be cared for and kept in condition by the various 
boards. Under the above heading are to be included 
grounds, buildings, furnishings and apparatus, play and 
athletic fields, fields for experimentation in agriculture. 

In older communities existing types of buildings and 
grounds add materially to the obstacles in the way of 
educational progress. Just as in building railroads the 
strap iron has given place to the heavy steel rail, and 
sharp grades and long circuits have been eliminated by 
heavy fills and cuts and tunnelHng, so the old type of 
school building, with its cramped ground space and its 
still more cramped rooms and corridors, has had to yield 
to more extensive grounds and to buildings constructed 
on much more generous lines. All of these advances in- 
volve large increase in cost. We must pay the price of 
progress in all these fields of human achievement or else 
remain at a standstill. 

209 



210 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

Could society but foresee the direction of movement 
and consequent needs that would result from the evolu- 
tion through which we are passing in all these new 
fields of action, much of what now seems waste and loss 
might possibly be avoided. Yet where is the economist 
who will venture to assert that the seeming waste and 
loss are real? Just how long must the physical plant 
of any public utility continue in use in order to balance 
the cost of labor involved in its construction? The ideas 
it embodies, together with those which experience has 
added, are indestructible. The laborer is still ready to 
serve in order to live. The raw material, or that which 
may be substituted for the original, is nature's gift to 
man. If only there are enough to labor, and if men are 
honest, the rest will adjust itself without a ripple in the 
great, swift currents of trade and industry. 

We lack most of all vision in directing these great 
constructive movements. Too often we look behind us 
to see what has been and forget to look before us to con- 
sider, in the light of the past and of present trend, what 
is to be. It is thus in this matter of equipping our 
schools. We need to build for the future rather than 
the present; for what should be rather than for what is 
or has been. 

2. General Conditions to Be Cared for 

Again we must deal with types. But, first of all, there 
are some very important general matters, applicable 
alike to all types, that should be disposed of. The site 
selected should, as far as possible, harmonize with the 
purposes of the school plant. It should be sanitary, free 
from noise or disturbing influences, reasonably easy of 
access to all, when all things are considered, and cer- 
tainly large enough to provide room for the complete 



PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT OF SCHOOLS 211 

organization of all that should be undertaken by the 
school, including all out-of-door exercises. 

Buildings should be constructed on plans determined 
primarily by what things a particular school aims to do. 
Due regard should be had in their construction for the 
safety and comfort of pupils and teachers. They should 
be so constructed as to provide a sufficiency of light, 
fresh air, and warmth during the cold weather if in a 
climate given to extremes of temperature. The furnish- 
ings and equipment of buildings should Hkewise accord 
with their purposes, and should be adapted to con- 
venience, facility, and good sanitation in all exercises 
of the school. 

Before proceeding to carry out any very extensive 
building projects a school board should make a careful 
survey of the educational situation and should adopt 
such a building pohcy as is most likely to be in line with 
the trend of educational progress. Otherwise new and 
expensive structures may be out of date and poorly 
adapted to the school work long before their reasonable 
term of usefulness has expired. As an illustration, if a 
school system in a city is beginning to consider the adop- 
tion of what is known as the six-four-four plan the board 
should take into account the advisability of erecting dif- 
ferent types of buildings for the six elementary grades, 
the four intermediate^ grades, and the four high-school 
and junior college grades respectively. 

Such a plan has been worked out in a very complete 
way by the city of Los Angeles, Cal., under the leader- 
ship of Superintendent Francis. While this is a subject 
to be considered more fully under a different head, it is 

^ The terms elementary, intermediate, and high school are here used 
as referring to organization under the six-four-four plan. Intermediate 
would therefore include grades seven to ten, inclusively. 



212 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

quite in order to call attention to the fact that such a 
division of the work of our common schools, with build- 
ings constructed so as to faciUtate the work, lends itself 
more readily to the adjustments that are being called 
for in our system of school training than any other 
scheme that has yet been devised. In fact, it may be 
fairly assumed that if we are to adjust our schools, as 
a unified system, so as to include vocational education, 
some such readjustment will be necessary and inevitable. 

3. The Elementary Building 

The building for an elementary school should be dis- 
tinctively a children's house. In style of architecture, 
in arrangement of grounds, and in interior and exterior 
equipment the study should be to make such a build- 
ing attractive for children, at the same time that all the 
essential adjuncts to the exercises of the elementary 
school should be provided. These would include types 
of rooms and their suitable arrangement, such as class- 
rooms, workrooms, assembly-room, exercise rooms, lunch 
rooms, rest rooms for teachers and pupils; proper sani- 
tary conditions, including cloak-rooms and basement; 
suitable decorations and adornments as well as the utili- 
ties of classroom work. 

4. The Intermediate Type 

The intermediate school should be planned for depart- 
mental work, and should have its shop or shops, which 
may better be one-story affairs and detached from the 
main structure. The main building should be provided 
with workrooms and laboratories, although not on as 
elaborate a scale as the high school. There will be 
needed, also, study room, rest room, assembly hall, li- 
brary, lunch room, gymnasium and swimming pool, with 



PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT OF SCHOOLS 213 

shower-baths. In the equipment for instruction there 
should be a relatively large amount of illustrative ma- 
terial as compared with the high school, such as maps 
and charts, pictures, lantern-sHdes, samples of building 
materials, collections illustrative of the great manufac- 
turing and commercial industries, etc. 

5. City High-School Buildings 

The city high-school building should be a composite 
structure with large grounds. It should be planned so 
as to permit all kinds of activities typical of the essen- 
tial features of community life. The main or central 
structure should provide for the administrative features, 
classrooms for academic work, and study rooms. An- 
other section of the .building or buildings should provide 
laboratories, lecture-rooms, and all accessories for the 
different lines of science work. There should be some- 
where generous space devoted to art and design and to 
household arts and home economics. The shops should 
be by themselves, including equipment for such voca- 
tional hnes as the particular school is to offer. There 
should also be suitable space for cafeteria lunch service; 
gymnasiums with baths and swimming pools for boys and 
girls separately; an auditorium of ample seating capacity 
and stage room; a music-room; a library. Some rooms 
should be provided for the meetings of special groups of 
students in connection with their activities. If the 
school is to become a social and literary centre for the 
community, there should be rooms planned and equipped 
for the use of clubs and other organizations and for 
lectures and amusements. All the rooms and depart- 
ments should be suitably equipped with furnishings and 
apparatus of the most approved types for the various 
exercises and activities of the school. 



214 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

Somewhere in connection with each high-school build- 
ing or at an accessible distance should be ample ath- 
letic grounds with opportunity for field sports for both 
sexes. In connection with the system of elementary and 
intermediate schools there should also be ample play- 
ground facilities, perhaps larger than the grounds imme- 
diately connected with each building, where the school 
children of each of a series of larger districts of the 
city may go for their out-of-door exercise and play. 
These grounds should all be properly equipped and under 
the supervision of expert directors of play and sport. 

6. The Small-City or Town Type 

For the small city, the town, or village the study 
should be to embody in the one building possible as 
many of the features given above as the nature and size of 
the community may require. Here, especially, is needed 
that careful survey suggested earlier in this chapter as 
a basis for a clearly defined educational policy, in order 
to determine, among other things, what kind of build- 
ing is to be suppKed. One of the most wasteful things 
in school administration is to be found in the kind of 
physical equipment that is often provided in these smaller 
centres. The necessity arises for a new school building. 
The honest and well-meaning citizens who constitute 
the board know little about educational needs or how 
to provide for them in the physical equipment. They 
simply know that a house is to be built, with walls and 
roof, and to be divided into about as many rooms as 
there are teachers. Result: a structure that is likely to 
handicap and render more or less ineffective the educa- 
tional work of that community for twenty years or more. 

The difficulty is that these men have had no oppor- 
tunity to learn the need and value of wise expert direc- 



PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT OF SCHOOLS 215 

tion in such matters. The provision in each county of 
one capable expert clothed with the necessary author- 
ity would remedy all this and remove one of the serious 
drawbacks to educational progress. Under a county 
board such expert direction, affecting all schools, rural 
as well as in village and town, would be readily practi- 
cable; for the same general principles as to buildings 
and grounds for the town should also apply to the 
country schools. 

7. Special Provisions and Equipments 

In each city and county system (assuming county 
organization of rural and village schools), rooms should 
be provided, at central points, for the various dental, 
throat, nose, and ear clinics in connection with the health- 
officer's department. There should also be provision in 
the way of rooms and apparatus for the psychological 
clinic, with special rooms somewhere for the educational 
treatment prescribed for all abnormal children suscep- 
tible to treatment in an educational way. In some in- 
stances separate buildings, designed for this particular 
purpose, are provided for such special educational treat- 
ment. 

The provision of library facihties for schools has re- 
cently become a matter of great interest and consequent 
growth. In the first place, under the stimulus of great 
benefactions, especially those by Andrew Carnegie, and 
aided not a little by the prosperous times of the past 
fifteen years, public libraries have increased immensely. 
In the year 191 2 alone Andrew Carnegie and the Car- 
negie Corporation gave $2,236,953 for public libraries. 
Gifts from other sources amounted to $3,265,825, making 
a total of $5,502,778 in one year's gifts for libraries. In 
addition to this there were given 115,954 volumes, 16 



216 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

sites for buildings, and 13 buildings for library purposes. 
In most of the larger cities and in connection with a 
number of the large universities a similar expansion in 
library facilities is noticeable.^ 

In many cases schools have taken advantage of these 
increased library facilities. Library boards are gener- 
ally glad to co-operate with the school in making up 
lists of books suitable for school use and also in provid- 
ing all conveniences necessary for ready access to this 
service by the pupils. 

In the cities substations and depositories of the cen- 
tral libraries are provided in order to facilitate such ac- 
cess for the schools as well as for the public in general. 
For the rural towns and districts extension circuits have 
been established in many instances by means of which 
books from central libraries may be loaned periodically 
to the schools. 

Such provisions are a great source of benefit to the 
school work. But boards of education should not over- 
look the fact that there will need to be a liberal supply 
of books for daily use available at all times and without 
loss of time in the pursuit of modern school work. This 
is true of all grades, but most emphatically true of high 
schools. 

The school museum of illustrative materials for the 
teaching of history, geography, and other sciences is also 
capable of becoming a much more important feature in 
material equipment than it has yet done. In the same 
category also are lantern-slides, which should be avail- 
able not only from a central depository of the State, as 
in the case of New York, but may well become a part of 
the regular equipment of the school system of a city or 
county. 

^See U. S. Com. Report, 1912, vol. I, pp. 379-406. 



PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT OF SCHOOLS 217 

It may be said in a general way with regard to normal 
schools, State universities, and special institutions for 
the education of defectives or delinquents that the same 
general principles should apply as are laid down for the 
physical equipment of the lower schools. There should 
be, first of all, a clearly defined policy as to the general 
scope and aim of the work to be undertaken as far as 
it relates to grounds, buildings, or other items of equip- 
ment. The development of the physical plan should 
then be in harmony with this policy, permitting of such 
flexibility in certain directions as to render possible ad- 
justments to new and unforeseen emergencies. Some 
way should then be provided by which such plans of 
development might be made continuous indefinitely, re- 
gardless of changes in administrative bodies having in 
hand the general management of these institutions. 



PART THREE 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF INSTRUCTION 

CHAPTER XII 

RECAPITULATION AND DEFINITION 

We now come to the discussion of that part of our 
subject toward which, as an objective, we have thus 
far been moving; for all the vast and intricate mech- 
anism set up and maintained by society through laws 
enacted, through the establishment of various types 
of schools, through boards of education and physical 
equipment, through the training and selection of teachers, 
exists primarily that children and youth may be taught. 
The significant thing about all that we have thus far 
reviewed, tested, and reconstructed in theory is in the 
fact that, after all, society is thus to delegate and trans- 
fer to educational experts whom society herself provides 
as supervisors and teachers the actual work of instruc- 
tion. 

I. The Mechanism of Administration Viewed as a 
Whole 

As a preparation for this transfer, we have witnessed 
the definite setting aside of a large group of men and 
women organized into a vast system known as the system 

218 



RECAPITULATION AND DEFINITION 219 

of public education. Let us now view this mechanism 
briefly as a whole from the standpoint of the actual 
work of instruction. The number of persons included 
in the complete organization of the pubhc-school system 
can be given only approximately. There are in State 
common-school systems 506,453 teachers. Of these 
144,784 teachers and 14,392 supervising ofHcers are in 
villages and cities having populations of 4,000 or more. 
Four thousand eight hundred and fourteen more are em- 
ployed in the instructional work of the 196 State normal 
schools, and 7,321 make up the instructional forces of 
the 89 colleges and universities under city, State, or na- 
tional control. This makes a grand total of 518,588, 
probably not including State and county superintendents 
and their various assistants. 

This instructional body had under instruction (figures 
for 1909-10) the total number of 12,864,464 persons, or 
an average of about 25 to each one instructing. The 
total cost to States and municipahties was, approxi- 
mately, $430,384,841, including both operating expenses 
and additional buildings. These figures give us some 
idea of the magnitude of the work and of its cost to 
society. How may this mechanism as a whole best be 
organized in order to give to society the highest possible 
dividend from the investment of men and money it is 
putting into the enterprise? 

2. Conclusions from What Precedes 

There are some very definite conclusions to be drawn 
from what has preceded. First of all there needs to be 
singleness of purpose in the minds of all our citizens in 
regard to this whole scheme of education. It is estab- 
Kshed and maintained solely in order that the young, 
while still most susceptible, may be so educated as to be 



220 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

able to start out in life abreast of their day in a knowl- 
edge of all that is best in human experiences and achieve- 
ment. The laws of the schools are enacted for this pur- 
pose. To this end, and not for poKtical gain, boards of 
education are elected. Only for this, and not for the 
benefit of school treasurers or banking houses, are per- 
manent school funds estabhshed or taxes levied by dis- 
trict or State. As a definite means to this end, never to 
give sustenance to those in need by giving away public 
jobs, are teachers educated and selected for their pecu- 
liar work. Not for the benefit of architects, or con- 
tractors, or for workmen in the various building trades, 
are schoolhouses built, but in order that schooling may 
he free to all children and youth. 

We are to educate for the future, not for the past. 
The criteria of standards as to the nature and amount 
of instruction to be offered are to be ascertained by tak- 
ing a careful inventory of present needs and of the trend 
of development of our social and industrial life as affected 
by education. Such a survey is no longer the work of 
men unacquainted with educational movements and laws. 
The expert alone is capable of determining such matters. 
And there are not nearly enough of these to meet the 
demands of our rapidly growing system. The weakest 
spot in this system, the link in the chain by whose 
weakness its inabihty to bear the required strain is de- 
termined, is this lack of educational experts together 
with society's hesitancy in turning over to them the 
direction of the work of our schools. 

And what constitutes an educational expert? He is 
one who has received a broad and liberal education; 
who has studied education in its history and in its 
principles; who has a clear and fairly comprehensive 
knowledge of the social problems affected by or affecting 



i 



RECAPITULATION AND DEFINITION 221 

the education of the schools; who knows expenmen tally 
the work of the teacher and the administrator; who is 
physically and morally strong, a man of tact and sound 
judgment, and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of 
democracy. He must needs be an optimist, possessed 
of a keen sense of humor, a lover of men. Such men, 
available for the work, are few; and little or no provision 
is made by society for producing such men. 

Be this as it may, however, there is still room for a 
splendid optimism. The public mind is rapidly becom- 
ing enlightened as to the needs of our schools. Educa- 
tion is coming more and more to be viewed as a sure 
and successful investment both for the social group and 
for the individual. Not a year passes now without 
some notable advance movement expressed in the form 
of legislation in from one to a dozen or more States of 
the Union. We are building better schools, we are im- 
proving the standards of work, we are organizing schools 
on a more democratic basis, and all our schools are be- 
coming more free and open to the young of all classes. 

3. Administration of Instruction Defined 

We need now to consider briefly what is meant by the 
administration of instruction. Various efforts have been 
made at defining the term ''administration" as related 
to education. Still the application of it seems vague 
and indistinct in the minds of most writers. In discuss- 
ing the administration of education in this general and 
inclusive way we have been trying to give to the term a 
clearer and more comprehensive significance. Thus ad- 
ministration is estabhshed in law. It includes all direc- 
tive and constructive features of education. Units of 
control are its fields of operation. Boards, superinten- 
dents, special supervisors, principals, and teachers are all 



222 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

parts of the official mechanism of administration. There 
are as many aspects of administration as there are units 
of control, down to the individual schoolroom or class- 
room presided over by the individual teacher. In each 
of the larger units of control there are varying aspects of 
administration. Thus supervision of a county or city is 
an aspect of administration. 

We have become habituated to the use of the title of 
superintendent as having to do rather definitely with 
the work of instruction. At the same time, in the course 
of evolution, the superintendent in a city has come to 
represent much more than instruction and the things 
closely related thereto. Only in recent years have men 
come to understand and appreciate this difference and to 
divide the different interests which the one superinten- 
dent has been compelled to assume among several de- 
partmental heads, all a part of administration but not 
of the direct work of instruction. And now it is pro- 
posed that in the large city there should be one educa- 
tional expert, as general superintendent, over all these 
various departments, in order properly to correlate them 
and render them more effective in accomplishing that 
for which the schools exist. 

We have preferred to consider administration under 
the two general headings: (i) Society acting through 
boards. (2) The administration of instruction through 
experts trained by society and selected by boards for 
their particular work either as supervisors or teachers. 
And what are the administrative features to be discussed 
under instruction? First of all is supervision; for this 
is, next to the board, the leading executive factor in 
administration. As we have seen, the superintendent is 
often, also, close to society. The line of demarcation 
and the intermediary relationship is not yet clearly 



RECAPITULATION AND DEFINITION 223 

defined; the office of the expert is not yet fully under- 
stood by the people at large. 

Naturally, then, there are all those things which lie 
close to society's side of the line, as well as the things 
pertaining directly to instruction that have come to 
be recognized as problems of supervision: attendance, 
health; the care of defectives and delinquents; the cur- 
ricula of the schools; the selection of teachers and their 
training in service; classification and promotion of pu- 
pils. There is the teacher in the classroom, directing 
instruction, organizing materials, moulding habits and 
conduct. All of this is a part of the administration of 
instruction. 

There might properly be included under this discus- 
sion the whole field of class management and method. 
But this phase of administration has already been thor- 
oughly and ably discussed and developed by numerous 
writers. It will be sufficient for our purpose here to call 
attention to the more general problems named above. 

4. Things to Be Kept in Mind in the Discussion to 
Follow 

The tendency of late has been rather to an over- 
emphasis of administrative problems. Such a condition 
often follows a general awakening to the importance of 
something that has previously been overlooked. It is 
to be hoped that out of this wave of intense interest and 
the consequent discussion may come a clearer under- 
standing of the relation of administrative parts to each 
other and of each to the entire problem of how best 
and most successfully to educate children and youth. 

We need especially to keep in mind for the discus- 
sion that is to follow certain principles impKed in what 
has been said concerning the training and selection of 



224 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

teachers. Among these we may mention first of all the 
principle that the instructional force must have at hand 
and be familiar with the necessary materials of educa- 
tion. This will be assured if society makes proper pro- 
vision for maintaining schools, on the one hand, and 
establishes an efficient system for the training and se- 
lection of teachers on the other. 

Next, they should know, as far as possible, the nature 
as well as the order and manner of development of the 
physical, mental, and moral life of children and youth, 
and be able to adjust the materials and processes of edu- 
cation to this knowledge. This is only another way of 
saying that all members of the instructional forces should 
have adequate professional training, The statement of 
such a proposition should not be construed, however, to 
mean that all should possess equally such knowledge. 
As a matter of fact, few if any one of a group will pos- 
sess it all. The point is that in the organization of any 
instructional force there should be represented all es- 
sential phases of this knowledge. A proper adjustment 
in the division of labor will do the rest. 

The members of the instructional corps of any school 
need to understand clearly the aims of education from 
the standpoint both of the individual and of society. 
Unless this is true there can be no central idea about 
which to organize materials and plans of action — a very 
vital condition to success in administering instruction. 



CHAPTER XIII 

SUPERVISION 

School supervision in the United States presents two 
aspects chiefly: (i) supervision from the standpoint of 
society; (2) from the standpoint of the school. Under 
the second of these are to be included the regular super- 
vision of instruction, variously distributed in larger sys- 
tems, and special supervision (a) of subjects, as music, 
drawing, manual arts; and (b) of special conditions re- 
lated to instruction, as attendance, health, and sanitation. 

I. The Educational Expert of the System 

In the administration of instruction society gives over 
to specially chosen experts the direction of the whole 
process subject to the approval of an intermediary 
board. This stewardship the superintendent of a sys- 
tem of schools primarily stands for. He may share it, 
by delegation, with assistants, special supervisors, and 
supervising principals; but society ultimately holds him 
responsible for results. Through this stewardship so- 
ciety provides for the transfer and appHcation of what 
it has done directly in establishing schools, in providing 
for their maintenance, and in the preparation and selec- 
tion of teachers, to the actual work for which the entire 
organism exists — the instruction of children and youth 
and of all who should share in the instruction of the 
schools. 

225 



226 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 



2. What the Position Involves 

Hence it is that the first aspect of this trust placed in 
the office of the superintendent is a looking toward so- 
ciety. It involves, first of all, an accounting for the 
uses made of the material equipment and support pro- 
vided. This obligation is shared with the board which, 
indeed, bears the greater part of it. In the second place, 
it requires of the superintendent, or of some special 
administrative officer, that the material conditions be 
carefully considered with reference to the future needs 
of the schools. The relative adequacy of the teaching 
force must also be reported, together with a statement 
of any needed changes, increase, or improvement which 
should be provided for. The materials and processes 
of education as represented in the programme of studies 
and exercises will need to be carefully considered and 
judged as to their adequacy in the Kght of general social 
and industrial needs of the community. The board will 
usually look to the superintendent for recommendations 
on such matters. Those things also which pertain to the 
general social Hfe of the school, as well as the relation 
of the school to the social life of the community, will 
call for a portion of the attention of the supervisory ex- 
pert of the system. It is the superintendent who should 
know what to emphasize in the work of the schools as 
indicated by the general social and economic conditions 
of the community. If we add to this the very impor- 
tant function of looking after the physical condition and 
well-being of the children of all the schools of a given 
community we shall see that the field for supervision 
even in this portion, most remote of all from the actual 
work of instruction, carries with it great responsibil- 



SUPERVISION 227 

ities and calls for men correspondingly capable and 
efficient. 

It is the larger administrative function just described 
which calls for men and women of great executive abil- 
ity, especially in our larger cities; but from the point 
of view of the school and the purpose for which it is 
established the second aspect of supervision is most vi- 
tally important. In this second capacity, first of all, 
the superintendent is the director and adviser in the 
work of instruction. He must see to it that a wise use 
is made of both time and materials toward attaining 
the end sought. He must guard against failures on the 
part of the teachers under him. To do this, after they 
are once selected and assigned, he must carefully coach 
the weak or the unskilled that may happen to be in the 
group. He must look well after the physical health of 
the teachers, their mode of living, their recreations, as 
far as he may do so without seeming to meddle. 

He it is who will strive to keep the teachers under his 
supervision at their best. This he may do (a) by sym- 
pathetic assistance and counsel; (b) by constructive 
criticism; (c) by bringing to their attention the latest 
things in educational progress and encouraging them to 
*' blaze" new ways into the untrodden paths of educa- 
tional procedure toward which we are all looking, moving ; 
in other words, by good, all-around leadership. 

Beyond and yet closely related to all this he finds 
time to study the problems connected with the promo- 
tion and classification of pupils. He looks into the 
problems of delinquents and defectives and seeks ways 
and means by which these may be better cared for. He 
inquires carefully into the causes and the cure for elim- 
ination and retardation. If the situation lends itself in 
the least hopeful manner to such accomplishment, he 



228 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

seeks to make the schools real vital centres of commu- 
nity life and interest for the purpose of bringing about 
a wide-spread and general social betterment. 

3. Special and Grade Supervision 

In the case of special grade supervision, as kindergar- 
ten, elementary, grammar, or high school, the assump- 
tion is that there are particular features of the work at 
these different stages of the educative process which 
call for special study and for peculiar directive ability 
in supervision. In the case of supervisors of special sub- 
jects the situation is quite different. This type of super- 
vision has evidently grown out of the effort to introduce 
into the programme of studies subjects with which the 
regular teachers were not famihar. Doctor W. A. Jes- 
sup, in a study of the ''Social Factors Affecting Special 
Supervision in the PubHc Schools," has brought out the 
fact that with some special subjects, such as music, 
drawing, penmanship, and physical education, the pre- 
vaihng method is that the "new material is taught by 
speciaHsts at regular intervals, followed by drill on the 
same by the regular teacher." In manual training, 
domestic science, and sewing. Doctor Jessup found the 
typical method to be "special subjects entirely under the 
charge of specialists and all lessons given by specialists. 
The shght tendency away from this method toward 
one in which the regular teacher has a share of responsi- 
bihty is confined almost entirely to the large cities." ^ 

In a few instances only do elementary-school systems 
provide for anything more than such general supervi- 
sion of music, drawing, penmanship, and physical edu- 

^ "Social Factors Affecting Special Supervision," Doctor W. A. Jessup, 
Teachers College Series, Contributions to Education, pp. 116-117, New 
York, 191 1. 



SUPERVISION 229 

cation outside of the regular teaching force. At Gary, 
Ind., a plan is in operation by which the special teacher 
instructs all classes instead of supervising. This is 
accomplished by arranging the work departmentally 
throughout. On the other hand, large high schools 
much more commonly provide for the special teaching 
of all these lines, usually without the need of much 
supervision. 

4. Supervision of Rural and Village Schools 

The types of supervision as determined by the estab- 
lished units of control and the kinds of schools which 
have resulted have already been named in discussing 
boards of education. Taking these in about the same 
order as previously referred to, the supervision of rural 
and village schools would first be considered. Under 
present conditions we have found this to be very in- 
adequate. Outside of New England, where town super- 
vision is provided, and New York, where the State is 
districted, regardless of county lines, by the State com- 
missioner of education, such supervision is confined 
almost entirely to county superintendents. Under this 
latter condition the supervision of instruction in rural 
schools is largely indirect. The superintendent or his 
assistant visits the schools once or twice a year. They 
observe the work of the teacher, the equipment, the 
general conduct of the school. Usually they talk to the 
pupils, and they offer to the teachers such meagre sug- 
gestions as their infrequent visits make possible. 

In many States these superintendents are not required 
to represent any very high standards professionally; in 
other words, they are not usually experts in the true 
sense. Neither their time nor their preparation enable 
them to work out a definite educational policy such as 



230 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

to mark strongly the character of instruction given in 
the schools under them. Yet this is their chief business. 
Sometimes — in most instances, in fact — they supplement 
their visits by a kind of indirect supervision. They send 
out circular letters to the teachers. They hold district 
and county meetings of teachers to discuss management 
and methods in the schools. The work of the county 
institute is devoted largely to similar purposes. 

The village schools frequently fare better. These 
usually employ a principal teacher who does some super- 
visory work. He helps teachers to prepare daily reci- 
tation and study programmes; aids them in getting the 
necessary materials; supervises promotions and classi- 
fication; aids in maintaining good order and right con- 
duct. Because he must usually teach during the school 
sessions, he has to do most of this indirectly or before 
and after school. Ordinarily such a principal is a man 
or a woman of little experience, a graduate of a normal 
school with two years of training to his credit beyond 
the high school, or a green college graduate or student 
of two or three years' standing, with enough to do to 
manage his own classes without bothering much con- 
cerning his assistant teachers. 

5. County Boards and Better Teachers the Chief 
Needs 

It is evident enough that a county board, empowered 
to employ a sufi&cient number of supervisors to take 
good care of this whole matter of instruction in these 
two types of schools would greatly improve conditions. 
Furthermore, if we could once establish higher standards 
of preparation of teachers for all our schools, as well as 
of supervision of instruction, much of the difficulty 
would disappear. The schools of Prussia, we are told, 



SUPERVISION 231 

are able to get along with a comparatively small amount 
of supervision. This is due chiefly to the fact that none 
but reasonably efficient teachers are permitted in the 
schools. The training of these is such that, with a pro- 
gramme of studies furnished by the State, they are able 
to carry the work of instruction along with a mini- 
mum of supervision. Inspection, chiefly, is all that the 
schools require. Before we carry the increase in the 
supervisory forces too far it might be well for us to get 
right generally on the more fundamental proposition — 
the properly prepared teacher. 

6. Supervision of Small Cities 

The small city with a population ranging from five 
thousand to one hundred thousand may readily consti- 
tute a second type. In such cities, as a rule, we find all 
the executive duties under the board of education, ex- 
cept such as can be handled readily and efficiently by 
committees of the board, devolving upon the one man 
as head of the school system. Such a position caHs for 
a man of great versatility. He needs not only to know 
the principles and laws of education, but also the best 
business methods as they pertain to the management of 
schools. 

We are only just awakening to the fact that this po- 
sition calls for a man trained for his job. The rapid 
growth of urban populations makes the demand for new 
men in this field quite worthy of consideration on the 
part of those who are preparing for administrative work 
in education. There are now in the United States (cen- 
sus of 1 910) 1,191 cities of the class referred to. These 
are divided as follows as to size: 5,000 to 10,000, 632 
cities; 10,000 to 25,000, 374 cities; 25,000 to 100,000, 
185 cities. This offers a suggestive gradation for pro- 



232 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

motions where a superintendent is seeking a larger field. 
Besides these there are 50 cities of 100,000 or over to 
which one may also ultimately aspire. This is saying 
nothing of the numerous subordinate offices, as assis- 
tant superintendents and ward principals, which are 
needed in the larger cities. These places, also, are in 
line of promotion for those who are qualified. 

When we consider the importance of these positions 
in their relationship to the proper administration of in- 
struction, and also the number of people needed, it seems 
high time that States were beginning to make some ade- 
quate provision for the special preparation of this class 
of educational experts. Thus far, in the main, we have 
been accustomed to let these superintendents ^^come 
up" through varied experiences, well equipped in a prac- 
tical way, with a rich fund of empirical knowledge. 
They have learned by imitating or by ready invention 
where a new situation has been presented. They have 
come by a devious course to a fair success, but the way 
they came they cannot chart. They can tell to others 
how a thing is done, but, as a rule, they know not the 
principles involved nor yet how to apply principles in 
solving new problems of administration. As a class they 
are rapidly passing. 

A few institutions, like Teachers College at Columbia 
University, or Harvard in its work with the schoolmen 
about Cambridge and Boston, have taken up the prob- 
lem of the training of experts for the work of supervi- 
sion. The time is not far distant, it is to be hoped, when 
this will be done extensively by our State institutions. 
Educational Hterature deahng with the problems pecu- 
liar to the superintendent's work is rapidly increasing. 
From the standpoint of permanency and a fair compen- 
sation the conditions were never so favorable as now. 



SUPERVISION 233 

Some real and worthy careers are opening for strong, 
well-trained men. At each succeeding call that comes 
for a well-qualified man to fill one of these places there 
is demonstrated, over and over, the shortage of men of 
the right kind — men that are being sought. 

Experience, as a part of one's equipment for the work 
of supervision, is a necessary factor. Knowledge of the 
various standards, tests, and measures of efficiency in 
school work and of their appHcation is also very essen- 
tial. It would be a great step forward for our universi- 
ties to offer scholarships, or fellowships where possible, 
for men who have had good initial training and suffi- 
cient experience to demonstrate unquestioned ability to 
prepare more fully for such work. If practicable they 
should serve a brief probationary term, as a part of this 
training, under capable expert direction. A still better 
arrangement would be a plan for directing their studies 
while they are holding actual positions. 

As stated above, the superintendent of a small city 
system is apt to be the educational factotum of the 
board. But even here certain reHef may be had through 
committees and through combinations of duties with 
such assistants as the office may afford. The secretary 
of the board may also be the attendance officer, or pur- 
chasing agent, or all three. A regular practising physi- 
cian may take care of the medical inspection and health 
supervision, especially if there be a visiting nurse or two. 
By such means the superintendent may be free to de- 
vote more time to the direct work of instruction and the 
problems more immediately attendant thereto. He may 
still have to conduct his own psychological clinic unless 
he can find in some principal or high-school teacher one 
qualified to do this at a slight additional compensation 
and with a programme of class work or other duties ad- 



234 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

justed so as to give the required time for the work. Some 
local or otherwise available and capable architect may 
be retained, as needed, to advise with superintendent 
and board in regard to new buildings and all matters 
pertaining to the development of the physical equipment 
of the schools. 

The point to the whole matter is that the all-important 
thing is the instructional work; and a city does not need 
to be very large to make of its proper supervision a man's 
task. There is no weaker point, to-day, in our scheme 
of administration, than that caused by this lack of men 
properly trained, both in scholarship and professionally, 
for the work of supervision. 

7. Supervision of Large-City Systems 

The peculiarity in the problem of supervision of in- 
struction which a large city presents is chiefly one of 
distribution of function. Here all the accessory prob- 
lems are taken care of by special departments. Two of 
these, attendance and physical education and health, 
will be discussed in separate chapters. But the super- 
vision of the work of teaching alone calls for an or- 
ganization quite complex in itself. First there is the 
question of assistants directly under the general super- 
intendent. Shall these be on the basis of a horizontal 
division, by grades; or on a vertical division, by dis- 
tricts; or a division by subjects for consideration, as 
music, drawing, manual training, attendance, physical 
training, and health? In either case what shall be their 
duties, what their authority? The first two of these 
methods of distribution are in common use, the third 
but slightly and in an embryonic way as yet. In this 
last form there is involved the idea of efficient supervision 
of the teaching work under the supervising principals. 



SUPERVISION 235 

who would report directly to the superintendent or to 
an office assistant. Such supervisors would make up the 
advisory board of the general superintendent as is 
customary where the other plans of distribution are in 
use. Each in his own department would refer all special 
cases to the superintendent, who would again refer to 
his advisory board, for more thorough consideration, all 
the more difficult and complex questions which might 
arise. As a matter of fact, the three methods of di- 
vision are more or less combined in a number of our 
larger cities. 

8. Purposes and Aims of Supervising Agencies 

Whatever the plan adopted, the aim is to cause the 
supervising agencies of the school to help as much as 
possible in making the instructional work of the schools 
strong and effective. With this purpose in view, and 
with the schools of a city organized into rather large 
units, as is generally the case, it would seem that the 
supervising principal should be the most dependable 
factor. Whatever else may be done from the office of 
the superintendent should be to help and to stimulate 
the work of the principal and to take care of such 
special features of instruction as may call for a more 
definitely expert treatment. 

In order to be able to furnish the necessary stimulus 
the special supervisor should study carefully the results 
attained by a principal in a given school situation. 
These results, compared with those attained by other 
principals, should point to relative excellence of method 
and spirit which these principals maintain. The entire 
system should be so organized and conducted as to ad- 
mit of the highest possible degree of freedom and initia- 
tive on the part of teacher, principal, supervisor of dis- 



236 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

trict, grade, or subject. Each in his place should be 
measured by the results attained as well as by a com- 
parison of method and management. 

Stimuli from the supervisor or principal as applied to 
the teacher at work may take on several different forms. 
The stimulus to-day may come through directing the 
teacher to some new and helpful materials that apply 
directly to the problem in hand. To-morrow may come 
the need of criticism — a fine discernment that shall see 
both the bad and the good in a piece of work, that shall 
mean hope rather than fear, be constructive rather than 
destructive. Another day an illustration may be sug- 
gested in the work of another teacher dealing with a 
similar problem. Or courage, hope, persistence may 
come through some little special notice of a piece of 
work, not perfect, yet full of promise. 

Such daily contact, sympathetic, full of suggestions, 
quick to appreciate, is the great factor in this work with 
the real workers — the teachers with their classes. The 
same general principles apply to all supervisors whether 
of grades, special subjects, or all the schools of a given 
district. First, and most emphatically, they apply to 
supervising principals; next, in a more general way, to 
assistant, district, or special supervisor; lastly, to the 
general superintendent, before whom, on some occasion, 
each and every one of those of whose work he is the 
final co-ordinator must pass in review. 

The entire supervising force should be on the look- 
out for that work which is meritorious and manage to 
discover for it some reward. The work of the teacher 
is hard enough at best. It will lighten the burden if 
what is really well done is always recognized in some 
way, and it will tend materially to increase the number 
of good, competent teachers. The number of super- 



SUPERVISION 237 

visors who have learned the art of criticism to that 
degree necessary in making such discriminations in the 
work of teachers is surprisingly few. We have said that 
criticism, for instance, should be constructive rather 
than destructive. In this respect we may find in our 
schools at least four types of supervisors. First there 
is the supervisor who carefully, kindly points out 
defects and suggests the remedies even to the extent 
of illustrating his points if necessary. Next there is the 
one who commends but at the same time suggests an 
entirely different treatment, the man of rare construc- 
tive abihty in the field of instruction. Both these 
t}^es of criticism are constructive, stimulating, whole- 
some. Then there is a third type, the faultfinder, the 
one who tears down without offering anything to replace 
w^hat he has utterly demolished. Such criticism is 
purely destructive. And a fourth class is no better al- 
though a Httle more pleasant to take; it is that of the 
supervisor who is always lauding, indiscriminately, every- 
thing he sees. His words are but fulsome flattery and, 
in the end, are likely to prove destructive of both cour- 
age and effort. 

9. The Superintendent and the Training of Teachers in 

Service 

The fine art of all arts of the superintendent and his 
assistants is the art of training teachers. No small part 
of the burden of school management is that of improv- 
ing the teachers in service — of so directing their activi- 
ties in school and at sundry other times as to result in 
a continuous growth of each individual. This is a part 
of the business of the leading spirit in any and all of 
the types or units of supervision we have here discussed. 
There is growing a feehng of restlessness among the 



238 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

great body of teachers as to the real value of much 
that is demanded in the name of '^ professional training." 
Again and again teachers are called from their work 
and the schools closed in order that instruction of pupils 
may give place to the process of "inspiring" and instruct- 
ing teachers. A programme is arranged, often without 
much forethought or continuity of purpose, and a meet- 
ing is announced for a day, two days— perhaps a whole 
week. And in a vast majority of cases much of that to 
which all are commanded or exhorted to give heed is 
entirely irrelevant to the work or growth of those for 
whose improvement it is offered. 

In the epoch of the ''eagle-screaming" celebration of 
Independence Day, or the torchlight parade as a win- 
ner of votes, there may have been a place for these 
teachers' gatherings where stock generalities and enter- 
taining speeches made up the entire programme. But 
in this day of seeking for new truth, of discovering the 
principles on which processes are to be based, it is time 
to organize these efforts for professional advancement 
about something more definite, more tangible. Too 
much time is involved of both pupils and teachers, too 
much of the teachers' hard-earned funds, to warrant 
such inadequate if not wholly useless procedure. The 
superintendent of any unit — county, village, or city — 
who is not prepared to lead teachers under his charge 
to something more definitely related to the problems 
everywhere calling for solution in the field of education, 
should immediately seek to discover what is good form 
in writing a humble resignation. 



SUPERVISION 239 

10. Function of Supervisors in the Selection of 
Teachers 

Not only must the superintendent and his aids look 
after the training of teachers in service but also the re- 
plenishing of the ranks from year to year to make up 
for growth and loss. Many a superintendent's plans 
have been defeated and his efforts nullified by failure to 
secure the right kind of teachers for the annual vacan- 
cies. Generally speaking, boards of education leave the 
selection and nomination of teachers in the hands of the 
superintendent and principals. The exceptional cases, 
where ''pull" is still made the basis of selections at times, 
are usually to be found in those cities where boards are 
appointive and so subordinated to the poHtical regime 
of municipal governments. 

The recommendations of the superintendent in regard 
to reappointments as well as in naming new teachers 
call for very full and careful consideration. There is 
involved not only a suitable salary schedule but also the 
whole matter of ranking and efhciency of teachers as a 
basis for determining the schedule and each teacher's 
right to promotion. Nothing can prove more fatal to 
any system than the establishment of a scale of salaries 
which increases on the basis of time of service solely 
without any check upon growth and efficiency on the 
part of each member of the teaching force. There are 
numerous ways of determining these matters. It is not 
in the province of this treatment of administration to 
undertake to give a model for a field so large and varied. 
Each system should work out its own scheme, in the 
light of local conditions, but with insistence upon some 
clear evidence of growth and at least sustained efficiency 
as a basis for every advance. 



240 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

There is involved, incidentally, the need of definite 
information for the board as to the range of salaries 
paid in other cities where similar social and economic 
conditions prevail. Maximum, minimum, and median 
standards should be available, not only from the cities 
of the country at large, but also from a carefully se- 
lected group of cities similarly conditioned as to size, 
cost of living, and such other factors as would affect the 
status of teaching in comparison with the local schools. 

One thing that has been said before will bear repeat- 
ing here: the teachers of any local system would better 
be selected from the State or country at large. Other 
things equal, such a plan will bring better results as to 
the vital quahty of the teaching corps. The local train- 
ing-school may have been and may still be expedient as 
a temporary means of securing a sufficient number of 
well-trained teachers. No well-informed superintendent 
would be likely to recommend the establishment of such 
an institution on any other ground. 

II. Things Superintendents Should Know 

The superintendent, to be successful, will need to 
have clearly defined views and a working policy con- 
cerning such problems as attendance; health; physical 
education; classification and promotion of pupils and 
teachers; the care of defective children; the causes and 
prevention of retardation and elimination; vocational 
guidance and selection; and trade, night, and other 
forms of continuation schools. 

The wise superintendent will keep in touch with the 
financial situation and the Kmitations his board is 
working under in this respect. In all his plans for en- 
largement and innovations he will carefully consult these 
interests in the Kght of what he feels will be the truest 



SUPERVISION 241 

economy in the long run. Although the supervising 
architect may be charged with preparing the plans for 
all new buildings or additions to old ones, a right condi- 
tion of things will leave the final approval, from the 
standpoint of adaptabihty, to the superintendent and 
his aids. Nothing is more trying to a conscientious su- 
perintendent than to find plans for buildings adopted in 
which important features, educationally, have been over- 
looked or omitted. For this reason the general super- 
intendent should always have a check on the building 
plans for the schools. 

Similar conditions make it desirable that all the spe- 
cial departments that in any way concern the instruc- 
tional work of the schools should be subject to review 
by the central supervising office. We have noted a ten- 
dency in some cities to place the supervision of health 
and also of playgrounds under departments of the munic- 
ipal government instead of under the board of educa- 
tion. Both these special fields bear a direct and vital 
relationship to the work of the schools and should there- 
fore be under the direction of school authorities and 
subject to recommendations and approval by the super- 
intendent of instruction. 

12. State Supervision 

There remain for our consideration here such forms of 
supervision as are provided under larger units of con- 
trol. That for counties has already been discussed as a 
part of a plan for county organization and a county 
board. Next above that comes State supervision. It 
was probably a wise foresight on the part of those who 
framed laws establishing this office that, in most in- 
stances, little real authority was vested in the office. 
Under our present prevaiHng condition of poHtical con- 



242 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

trol a partisan official possessed of great power in such 
an office might easily play havoc with State systems of 
education. 

We have already discussed this anomalous situation 
as it exists in many States under the chapter on boards 
of education. Even with a more ideal condition as to 
the method of choosing such an official, if we adhere to 
the principles heretofore laid down, the State superin- 
tendent's office should have little or nothing to do, in a 
direct way, with the instructional work of the schools. 
But this is not saying that this office may not be a very 
useful and important one in its relation to instruction 
in a democratic scheme of education. Such an official, 
acting as the executive of a State board with depart- 
mental assistants under him, becomes a very necessary 
and desirable factor in the educational organism. 

First of all there are the educational laws of the State 
to be enforced. This the State superintendent, in co- 
operation with county and district superintendents and 
boards, is, or should be, definitely charged with and 
duly empowered to execute. Incidental to this execu- 
tive relation will appear also the obligation to point out 
to the State board, as a basis for legislative recommenda- 
tion, wherein, if at all, the laws are defective or inade- 
quate. This legal aspect of the office no doubt repre- 
sents the most vital service which the superintendent 
can render. Such an official, backed by a board of 
representative men, should be able to develop the legal 
basis for a strong State organization capable of meeting 
all demands in the field of public education. 

Then there is the certification of teachers. Undoubt- 
edly, this whole matter should be subject to the control 
and careful supervision of the State executive, again in 
co-operation with county and city authorities. It is 



SUPERVISION 243 

believed by some, also, that such a department should 
keep a careful record of the teaching staff of the State 
and thus be able to give reliable information to school 
authorities concerning the professional records and per- 
sonal characters of teachers. This would save many 
schools from serious mistakes and would also be a pro- 
tection to the deserving teacher in need of a position. 
Such a record seems to belong naturally with some cen- 
tral office having to do with the certification of teachers. 

All reports necessary to show the educational condi- 
tion and needs of the State the superintendent should 
have authority to collect, tabulate, and pubhsh for the 
information of legislators, boards of education, the public 
press, and all those engaged in educational work. Such 
a system of reports, well chosen and wisely interpreted, 
can be made to touch every vital problem of education 
in a State. It can do much to ehminate incompetent 
officers by insistent demand for the information they 
should give, but in many cases may be found incapable 
of reporting. It is capable of becoming a strong stimu- 
lus to the entire system of schools. The trouble with 
most of these offices now is that in the matter of reports 
they are ruled solely by what is traditional or what 
seems to be politic. 

Through such a central office of the State should be 
conducted an inspection of all school buildings and prop- 
erties used in education of whatever grade with refer- 
ence to their sanitary condition, their safety, and their 
adequacy for the work that is required to be done. 
This might be done directly or through co-operation 
with county and city officials, but should always be 
subject to strict review by the State department. 

In cases where the State offers subsidies to schools 
the office of the superintendent should determine whether 



244 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

or not the conditions of granting such subsidies are being 
fulfilled. But the granting of such subsidies should 
never be conditioned in such a way as seriously to cur- 
tail the freedom and initiative of local authorities as 
regards the instructional work of the schools. 

Another important service which the ofhce of the 
State educational executive may render is in the super- 
vision of teachers' institutes and other general teachers' 
organizations. Attention has already been called to the 
waste which often characterizes these really desirable 
factors in educational progress. There are a few States 
where provision has already been made for a stronger 
directive control. With a properly constituted State 
board and executive, under carefully defined powers and 
duties, these gatherings, often so weak and meaningless, 
might become powerful forces for professional uplift and 
the betterment of our schools. It need not be said, of 
course, that all this should be done in a co-operative 
spirit, with local, county, city, and State forces working 
together to the same end. The real point to the matter 
is the need of more definite central supervision with 
designated authority. 

With such an array as the above of activities for a 
State superintendent, it is evident enough that there is 
ample room for such an official, with a strong staff, to 
aid in co-ordinating, stimulating, and improving without 
need of infringement upon any essential feature of local 
control, initiative or participation. Yet there is that in 
our political atmosphere which seems to engender in men 
who win success through the popular vote a thirst for 
increase of power and control. Always there appears to 
go with such an office a restlessness, an itching for what- 
ever lies adjacent in a common field of service, an ambi- 
tion for aggrandizement of ofhce through numbers and 



SUPERVISION 245 

an increased annual budget. Such a spirit is not in 
accord with the spirit of democracy in education. It is 
the selfsame spirit that has built and fostered the evils 
of political patronage and political "spoils." From all 
such may our free pubKc schools be deHvered! 

With such opportunities as those enumerated above 
for influencing the schools, it is evident that the indirect 
effect of the office of State superintendent would make 
possible a much more efficient grade of instruction. 
Thus, while communities would be left with a maximum 
of freedom, the ability of the State's official to aid in the 
general advancement of schools of all classes would be 
much greater than that which generally prevails at the 
present time. 

13. Supervision of Normal Schools Needed 

Where a State has a number of normal schools some 
provision should be made for a central supervision of 
them. If they are under a unified State board then the 
expert executive staff should provide for this. The real 
need of such supervision is more in matters of instruc- 
tion than anything else outside of what the business 
management of the board could take care of. It could 
not be expected that a board of lay members should 
deal with instructional work. The need would be, 
chiefly, for a standardizing of the work which all would 
undoubtedly do in common. There would also be need 
of some direction in differentiating individual schools 
with reference to certain lines of work so as to make an 
equitable distribution of such special features without 
omitting any essential thing. There are several of these 
special lines of work which all may not need to under- 
take in order to meet the demands. Certainly all should 
not undertake them because some one school does. 



246 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

It IS true that these matters might be managed 
through co-operation, but some one should at least be 
charged with the duty of bringing it about. If special 
supervision of this kind were established, including su- 
pervision of teachers' courses given in high schools, it 
would help materially in many of the States toward 
bringing about the establishment of trustworthy stand- 
ards which all interested persons or boards might have 
access to. 

14. Supervision of Instruction in a University 

It may sound a little strange for one to refer to such 
a thing as the supervision of instruction in a university. 
Yet why should it? A considerable proportion of the 
instructional work done in our modern American univer- 
sities, as every one knows, is done by assistants, or fel- 
lows, or instructors, most of whom know nothing about 
teaching except by that sort of empiricism which one 
has by remembering how he was taught. There has 
been a great change in this regard with the rapid growth 
of our great State institutions and along with that the 
growth in graduate work. If it is right and desirable 
that novices in the work of teaching should be super- 
vised anywhere above the elementary grades it is cer- 
tainly in order here. 

The old plea for academic freedom can hardly be urged 
with any justness against such supervision. States have 
organized these institutions in order to give the very 
best possible training to young men and women. As a 
matter of sound economy, the organization of the work 
should be the best possible as calculated to bring to the 
State the largest returns both in quality of training and 
the number successfully cared for. Besides, as we have 
just shown, there are changed conditions in our institu- 



SUPERVISION 247 

tions which call for a modified form of administration in 
this particular. And it is probably cheaper and better 
for the State to provide for the supervision rather than 
to pay the greater price for men of wider experience, 
even if enough men were to be had, which seems not to 
be the case at present. 

Such supervision might readily be provided by depart- 
ments, subject to advisement from the office of each 
dean or director of a college or school in the university. 
If rightly entered into it would greatly improve the in- 
struction of lower classes, would tend to reduce the 
^'mortality" among freshmen, and would undoubtedly 
save many worthy young instructors from failure and 
premature retirement from the work of teaching. Here, 
again, the force of an outworn tradition relentlessly grips 
the situation and prevents what might easily mark a 
great forward movement in college and university ad- 
ministration. 

15. Inter-Institutional Supervision 

We come finally to a certain phase of supervision 
which includes something of all these other types. There 
are certain inter-relationships among the different edu- 
cational institutions when considered as to grade. As 
the individual moves forward from elementary to inter- 
mediate school, from intermediate to high school, and 
from high school to college or university, there are artic- 
ulations to be looked after and readjustments to be made. 
These steps should be so arranged as to come about with 
the least possible waste in expense, or time, or spirit. 

The method of fixing arbitrary schedules or pro- 
grammes of study by State departments or by the insti- 
tution higher up has been proven unsatisfactory and in- 
adequate. For every one knows that programmes of 



248 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

study are live and sensitive things — organisms that are 
changing, growing with every passing year. Hence the 
fixing of set standards to be formally applied by a State 
department to all conditions alike that may exist in a 
given State has proven impracticable. On the other 
hand, the institution higher up is apt to fix its own base 
line, regardless of how far up the one below can come, 
and preserve its normal condition as a stage in a con- 
tinuous evolution. This, too, is unsatisfactory. 

The method of co-operative study of the scheme of 
materials and exercises that make up the curricula of all 
our schools is more to the purpose. This naturally 
brings about comparisons, readjustments working down- 
ward instead of upward, and at the same time the normal 
flexibihty and adaptability of the programme as a grow- 
ing, changing organism. With such a plan in opera- 
tion it matters not so much from what quarter the 
supervision and adjustment of these articulations for 
every-day working purposes may come. The one essen- 
tial feature of it is that it should be in rather close and 
intimate touch with the work that is actually in progress 
on both sides of a given fine of contact. 

In the case of the lower grades, this work may be well 
cared for by the supervising forces in our city and county 
systems. The chief point of difficulty lies between the 
high school and the higher institutions. The most suc- 
cessful working plan thus far devised in this case has 
been found to be the co-operative plan for the study of 
standards, with a man of large experience in pubHc 
high-school work coming back to these schools as ad- 
juster from a place in the ranks of university instructors. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 

I. Definitions 

From the preceding chapters it must be evident that 
we are still using most of the terms referring to educa- 
tional administration somewhat loosely. In the discus- 
sion of ''Supervision," for instance, the terms "superin- 
tendent" and "supervisor" are sometimes used as 
synonyms and sometimes as having quite different 
shades of meaning. Our dictionaries, in fact, permit the 
treatment of the three terms "inspection," "supervision," 
and "superintending" as synonyms. It seems fitting, 
however, that the educational pubHc, at least, should 
agree upon differentiated meanings of these terms in 
any discussion of administration. Professor E. C. Elliott 
has already called attention to such a differentiation 
when he speaks of the external forms of control of the 
school as "(a) the legislative, (b) the administrative, 
(c) the supervisory, and (d) the inspectorial." ^ Prob- 
ably not all would agree with his use of these terms. 
For instance, he uses "administrative" in a much more 
restricted sense than the common acceptation of this 
term among educational writers seems to warrant. He 
thus makes the terms "supervisory" and "inspectorial" 

^ " Instruction; Its Organization and Control," by Edward C. Elliott, 
chap. V, pp. 107-110, in " High School Education," by C. H. Johnston 
and others. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 19 12. 

249 



250 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

co-ordinates of '^ administrative," instead of subdivisions 
of it, as in the present writing. He also fails to differ- 
entiate supervision from superintending, although we 
are much in need of the two terms with a distinctness 
of meaning at our present stage of progress in the formu- 
lation of a science of education. 

In our chapter on ''Supervision" the purely synony- 
mous use of the three terms ''inspection," "supervision," 
and "superintending" has been adhered to or implied 
because we are there dealing in a general way with sev- 
eral phases of closely related aspects of the administra- 
tion of instruction in our schools. The manifestly rapid 
development of a field generally designated as the 
"inspection of schools" makes it desirable at this point 
to define the three functions to which we refer when we 
make use of the three terms in question. Such defining 
is also necessary in order to be more strictly in accord 
with our present plan of treatment of the field of school 
administration. 

We speak of a superintendent as one who exercises a 
watchful care and direction over a group or series of 
processes directed toward a common end or interest. 
Such a function may or may not involve direct personal 
contact with those directly engaged in carrying out the 
details of the work which a given project requires. It 
may even be true that a superintendent is practically 
unknown, as a person, to most of those actually at work 
under him. At the same time, these workers may be 
overseen, or "supervised," by experts selected for that 
purpose. Thus, the supervisor comes into direct per- 
sonal contact with those of whose work he is the over- 
seer. 

In a small system, where comparatively few workmen 
are involved, one person may perform the two functions. 



THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 251 

Likewise, the supervisor may be a workman, or a super- 
intendent both supervisor and workman — all three in 
the one person. But the one who is only a workman 
cannot be a supervisor; nor can the one who is only 
supervisor and workman be said to be a superintendent. 

We need these two terms, each with a distinct meaning, 
when we are discussing large city school systems or 
other large units of control in education. Otherwise, we 
shall constantly be getting confused in our discussions 
of administration. So, also, the terms "inspector" and 
*' inspection" are coming to be a necessity in our ad- 
ministrative terminology. 

An ''inspector" is one who looks into or investigates 
a process or an institution in an ofhcial capacity. He is 
not habitually in personal contact with the workers, 
nor does he necessarily have authority to direct as super- 
intendent. He represents a third factor, whose function 
it is to see whether or not the end sought by the process 
or institution is being attained. It is true that either 
the one who superintends or the one that supervises 
may also at the same time be acting as inspector; but 
not the other way about if we adhere strictly to the 
meaning of terms. Thus far in practice there has been 
a general confusion of function as well as of terminology; 
but we seem to be gradually emerging into a condition 
where distinctions in both respects are to be more marked 
and specific. 

In a large city system, for instance, there is necessarily 
a superintendent managing and directing the work of 
all the schools. But this superintendent must depend 
upon others to directly supervise instruction. These 
supervisors we have found to be either {a) those who 
oversee the instruction in special subjects, as music, 
drawing, domestic arts, and science ; {h) those who super- 



252 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

vise the instruction in a given district, or of a given grade ; 
or (c) supervising principals placed over the schools of 
separate buildings. 

In a State system we may have a general superin- 
tendent of instruction with special functions distributed 
among several assistants. There may also be inspectors, 
such as of school buildings with reference to sanitation 
and safety, or of the general character and work of the 
schools with reference to certain standards required as a 
basis for the distribution of State funds or other pur- 
poses. We could scarcely say that there would be any 
strictly supervisory function by the State, with reference 
to instruction in the schools, unless it should be of that 
in State institutions. 

2. Recent Development of the Inspectorial Function in 
Education 

The office of inspector in city systems is at present con- 
fined chiefly to the two functions of medical inspection 
and the inspection of buildings and grounds. Aside 
from this the development of inspection has thus far 
been mostly by States as units rather than by districts, 
townships, or counties. 

In the inspectorial work of States, as we have found 
in most other phases of school administration, the differ- 
ent units have as yet had but Httle in common. The 
work first developed in the East, chiefly in Massachusetts. 
Here it has related largely to matters of health and safety, 
with some standardizing of schools as a basis for certain 
subsidies granted by the State. We may readily sum- 
marize the purposes of inspection as thus far developed 
under the following heads: (i) health and sanitation; 
(2) safety of buildings; (3) the classification and stand- 
ardizing of schools (a) as a basis for subsidizing, (b) as 



THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 253 

preparing for technical and professional training in 
higher institutions, (c) as fitting for certification in some 
department of civil service. The widest possible varia- 
tions have occurred under (3). 

3. Some Interesting Variations and Their Causes 

In New England and the Eastern States schools have 
been standardized chiefly as a basis for subsidization. 
Until recently the matter of preparation for college and 
university work has been cared for in that section by 
means of entrance examinations and by certification 
based upon the scholarship records of students entering 
from the different secondary schools. The New England 
College Entrance Certificating Board is one of the re- 
sulting developments. The very elaborate plan of in- 
spection recently developed in New York stands out as 
a very striking type, unlike all others in most respects. 
Under this system regents* examinations and school 
inspection are inseparably associated. The inspectors 
are chosen primarily to inspect by academic subjects, 
although they also may be expected to check up all the 
academic work of any school they may visit. These 
inspectors are looking especially into the instructional 
work of the secondary schools in order to make possible 
the highest degree of progress and to see to it that the 
examinations correspond to the work of the schools. 
They are also charged with the enforcement of such 
legal provisions as compulsory attendance, fire laws, 
sanitation, and equipment generally. As these latter 
features become adjusted their work takes on a form 
more pedagogical in character, thus assuming the super- 
visory aspect. 

To the States of the South and West, however, a some- 
what different problem of inspection is presented. Most 



254 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

of these States have developed strong normal schools, 
State colleges, and universities. The last named institu- 
tions early adopted the certificating plan for admission 
of high-school graduates. Long before there was any 
thought of State high-school supervision or inspection 
in those sections the State universities found it neces- 
sary to inspect and standardize high schools in order to 
be able to operate successfully the certificating plan. 
Such inspection began in Michigan and spread rap- 
idly to the North Central States. More recently the 
Southern States, through the co-operation of the General 
Education Board, have adopted a similar plan. 

This relationship was entirely voluntary on the part 
of high schools and universities and was entered upon 
for mutual helpfulness in furthering the cause of State 
education. The standards established were usually those 
recognized as essential to efficiency of work along the 
lines of preparation everywhere considered as the staples 
of high-school education. 

Gradually through the North and West other influ- 
ences have developed to modify this situation. Some 
States have undertaken to subsidize high schools. Oth- 
ers have passed laws specifying completion of high- 
school work as a prerequisite to certain privileges, as in 
case of bar examinations and the standardizing of medi- 
cal education, or the permission of high schools to offer 
courses for the normal training of teachers. In most 
of these States where normal schools have developed 
there has appeared a spirit of jealousy toward the rapidly 
growing universities. Thus through a combination of 
causes there are appearing many modifications of the 
original methods of inspection of high schools. 



THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 255 

4. Types of Inspection Developed 

In the North Central group of States we may find five 
distinct types or conditions of inspection as a result of 
the operation of the above-named forces: (i) State De- 
partment and university inspection working co-opera- 
tively as in the case of Missouri. (2) Two distinct 
systems of inspection, one carried on through the State 
Department and the other by the university, with more 
or less of duplication and some friction. This type is 
best typified by Wisconsin. (3) Inspection by the uni- 
versity only, as in the case of Michigan. CaHfornia on 
the coast, and Texas in the South are of the same type. 
(4) Inspection under a representative State board, as in 
Minnesota, Indiana, and North Dakota. (5) Inspec- 
tion through the State Department only, as in the cases 
of South Dakota and Montana. As for the rest, it may 
be said that there are appearing practically as many 
modifications, or combinations, of these five types as 
there are States remaining in the North and West. It 
is fair to predict that none of these types will continue 
long as they are. A careful study of the whole situa- 
tion seems to lead to the conclusion that, as yet, no 
carefully developed plan, organized in the interests of 
the most efficient service by this agency for the im- 
provement of instruction, has been formulated. 

One of the recent and interesting types to develop in 
the field of inspection is that now in process of organiza- 
tion in Kansas. The situation in that State may be 
best epitomized by the following from a recent letter 
by Hon. E. T. Hackney, president of the State Board 
of Administration, a board created at the last session of 
the legislature: "We are trying to so organize our 
inspection work for the high schools, that we will not 



256 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

duplicate inspection in any case. With that in view we 
have a secretary who has charge of the general field, and 
he can send a man from any of the institutions to make 
the inspection for him, usually selecting a man who is 
best fitted to do the inspection work and who resides 
closest to the school to be inspected. Generally the in- 
spection work is done by one man in each school, and 
he takes enough time to cover a number of cities on 
one trip." 

Here is an honest effort to secure two very important 
conditions of efficient inspection — a unified plan which 
eliminates duplication and conflict, and economy in its 
execution. The former is provided for by the simple 
device of a general secretary with power to direct in- 
spection, the latter by utilizing men from different 
institutions to inspect the schools in their vicinities. 
The second may also become, in some degree, a unify- 
ing principle under tactful management. 

Iowa has recently evolved a plan of inspection under 
a State Board of Secondary School Relations, appointed 
by the State Board of Education of that State. This 
would come under type (4) , as given above, were it not 
for a recent development which estabUshes inspection 
also from the State Department. 

Perhaps the most interesting recent enactment for 
the administration of inspectorial work is that provided 
for by an extraordinary session of the legislature for the 
State of Ohio, February, 19 14. Section 7753 of this new 
school code reads as follows: 

The superintendent of public instruction shall appoint two 
competent public high-school inspectors, who are connected 
with no college or university, two public high-school inspectors 
selected from the faculty staff of the college of education of 
Ohio State University, and one public high-school inspector from 



THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 257 

each of the faculties of the Ohio normal colleges at Oxford and 
Athens and the Ohio normal schools at Kent and Bowling Green. 
The inspectors appointed by the superintendent of pubHc in- 
struction from the faculty staffs of the college of education, 
normal colleges, and normal schools shall be nominated by the 
presidents of their respective institutions. The superintendent 
of public instruction may also appoint, when necessary, com- 
petent instructors from any public or private school to inspect 
such high schools as the superintendent may direct. 

The law goes on to define the duties of these inspectors. 
Those from the various institutions are to devote not 
more than half of their time to the work, while those 
appointed by the superintendent directly are to give all 
of their time to inspection. The inspectors are to meet 
on call at Columbus for conference with regard to stand- 
ards to be established. They are to report all inspec- 
tions of schools to the department and to each of the 
institutions named above. All final recommendations 
for the rating or approval of schools are to be based on 
a majority vote of the inspectors. 

When it is remembered that the superintendent of 
public instruction in Ohio is not elected by popular vote, 
but appointed by the governor of the State, it will be 
seen that the above legislation marks a distinct step in 
the effort to satisfactorily solve the problem presented 
by this particular phase of the administration of instruc- 
tion. If this remarkable new educational code had made 
provision for the appointment of the chief educational 
executive of the State by a State board of education, as 
discussed in chapter VII, it would have given practically 
an ideal solution to the problem. As it is, the departure 
thus taken in Ohio from the original methods of inspec- 
tion in that State will be followed with great interest by 
all students of school administration. 

There are various other departures from the special 



258 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

types enumerated, which should be mentioned here. 
Iowa has recently provided, through the State Depart- 
ment, for an inspector of normal courses in high schools 
and inspectors of the smaller high schools. This now 
gives the State Department three inspectors, while the 
State Board employs an inspector and two assistants. 
The University of Minnesota provides for the inspec- 
tion for accrediting private secondary schools and non- 
subsidized public high schools. Cincinnati University 
provides an inspector for accrediting secondary schools 
both in the city and outside. This inspector is also 
professor of secondary education and assistant superin- 
tendent of the city schools. In this latter capacity his 
supervision extends only to high schools, on which he 
reports to the superintendent. He also recommends 
teachers for appointment to positions in the high schools. 
As professor of secondary education he participates in 
the training of teachers of secondary grade. IlKnois has 
recently provided an assistant to the superintendent of 
public instruction, whose special function is announced 
as the standardizing of high schools, with special refer- 
ence to the execution of the new free-tuition law and the 
certificating law, both of which were enacted in 19 13. 
Heretofore, for the past twenty-five years, all inspection 
and standardizing in the State have been done through 
the university. The University of Chicago has a system 
of affiliated schools whose relationship is determined by 
inspection. This list is not confined to the State of 
Illinois. 

5. Work of the General Education Board in the South 

In the Southern group of States the General Education 
Board in most cases pays the expenses of inspection. 
The States included in this group are Virginia, West Vir- 



THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 259 

ginia, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carohna, Florida, 
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana (until recently), Ten- 
nessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas. In all cases, except 
Arkansas and Louisiana, the inspector is attached to the 
department of education of the university and is paid 
through that institution. In the two States excepted, 
the office is attached to the State Department. 

Under this arrangement in all the States of the South 
the inspector co-operates with the State Department, 
making regular reports to that department as a basis 
for meeting other needs for standardization in each par- 
ticular State. In all but the two named above, the in- 
spector is also a lecturer in the department of secondary 
education in the State University. Thus, a complete 
uniform and co-operative plan is provided without dupli- 
cation or friction. 

Since this work of inspecting and lecturing on secon- 
dary education under the General Education Board be- 
gan in 1905, $12,000,000 has been expended in new high- 
school buildings, and there has been an increase of 
$2,500,000 in the annual income of high schools. The 
number of public high schools has increased from 1,032 
in 1900 to 2,194 in 19 10; the number of teachers from 
2,648 to 6,482; and the number of pupils from 62,289 

to 137,469.' 

The exceptional case among the above-named group 
of States where two inspectors are employed, the sec- 
ond one being for the State Department, is Tennessee; 
but in this case the two co-operate most harmoniously. 
Texas, as has been previously noted, has only university 
inspection at present and is independent of the General 
Education Board. 

^ The author is indebted to Professor J. S. Stewart of Athens, Georgia, 
for the information concerning southern high-school inspection. 



260 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 



6. Associations of Colleges and Secondary Schools 

Besides these various systems of State inspection of 
schools, there exist two organizations of colleges and sec- 
ondary schools, including respectively the North Central 
States and the Southern States. These organizations 
are for co-operation among the States with special ref- 
erence to the accrediting of schools for college entrance 
by certificate. The standards adopted necessarily vary 
somewhat from those of any one State. This is due to 
the fact that they must include all of the highest stand- 
ards of all the States in the group. It is also intended 
thus to establish an ideal to which the weaker schools 
may aim to attain. 

The inspection for these associations is done by the 
regular inspectors of the States, who have in charge the 
accrediting for university entrance. They report to all 
the inspectors in a body, and after the approval of these 
reports by the board of inspectors, a report is made to 
a representative body or commission on accredited rela- 
tions. The advantage of such uniform accrediting falls 
chiefly to the secondary schools and to such higher in- 
stitutions, within and without the territory included, as 
do not maintain accredited lists of their own. It has 
exerted a marked influence in raising the standards of 
efficiency in secondary-school work of the two sections 
included by these associations. There has also resulted 
a fine spirit of mutual understanding and co-operation 
among the colleges and secondary schools. 

7. Some Conclusions 

From this brief survey of the field of inspection it is 
easy to discern a condition of transition in which there 



THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 261 

is at present no distinctly basic principle dominant. 
The very rapid development of three types of institu- 
tions in our State systems of education — high schools, 
normal schools, and universities — has brought about this 
state of confusion. Conditions widely at variance in 
different sections of the country have tended in no small 
degree to enhance the resulting turmoil among our edu- 
cational forces. Had there been State universities from 
the beginning, and in all the States, the situation would be 
greatly simpHfied. So, likewise, would the non-political 
organization of all state departments of education or 
public instruction have greatly reduced the present com- 
plexity of conditions. 

But, since conditions are as we find them, it behooves 
all who are sincerely and unselfishly concerned with 
the development and perfection of our system of public 
education to make a careful survey of the field and seek 
to evaluate the different forces which are now seemingly 
contending for recognition or mastery in this relatively 
new field of administrative responsibility. To enumer- 
ate again, these forces are: (i) State universities, which 
originated the practice of inspection for standardization, 
in order to be able to extend to high schools the boon of 
entrance by certificate instead of the entrance examina- 
tion. (2) State departments upon which legislation has 
laid the duty, either directly or by implication, of stand- 
ardizing high schools for granting of subsidies and other 
purposes. (3) State normal schools seeking to find their 
exact place in the general scheme of State education, 
from which they seem to have been detached temporarily. 
(4) Institutions on private foundations which, by reason 
of the traditions on which they were estabHshed, do not 
find it easy to recognize general State standards for col- 
lege entrance. 



262 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

Now, these are all worthy factors in our scheme for 
the general diffusion of intelligence and scholarly attain- 
ments. Each should, therefore, receive such sympathetic 
and broad-minded treatment as may be due in the light 
of what may be found desirable and necessary to the highest 
efficiency of the public-school system of the State. Certainly 
no such motive as a mean jealousy, or the desire for ag- 
grandizement of a public ofhce, or selfish interest in any 
kind of institution should be permitted to restrain or 
hinder such administrative organization as may be found 
to be best suited to the attainment of that efficiency. 

Let us seek to examine further into the aims and prin- 
ciples involved in this undertaking. First of all, it is 
proposed, for diverse purposes, to standardize our high 
schools. Now, it is in the very nature of standardiza- 
tion to tend to bring about a static condition of any in- 
stitution. Our school system is, and should always be, 
a growing organism. Its most marked characteristic 
should be its readiness of adjustability to the changing 
conditions and needs of society. In dealing with this 
matter of inspection, therefore, what conditions on the 
part of the inspecting staff of a State are most likely to 
operate in favor of continued growth and adjustability? 
Will routine work by officials from a State department 
or under a State board be most conducive to such growth? 
Or will there be a distinct advantage in favor of close 
contact on the State side with a State institution of 
learning? And if we are choosing a State institution, 
would it be preferably a normal school or a university, 
or does it make no difference either way? 

However people may differ as to the possible evolution 
of the normal school, it must always be true that its 
most distinct function, in most cases, at least, will be the 
preparation of elementary-school teachers. On the other 



THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 263 

hand, it will always, in the nature of things, be the 
primary function of the university to deal with the sources 
of knowledge and with the more complete organization 
of systems of science and philosophy. Which of these 
contacts is most Hkely to preserve in the inspector that 
attitude most favorable to the growth and adjustabiUty 
of the schools he inspects? 

Inspectors themselves everywhere shrink from the 
narrowing tendencies of their work when it is exclusively 
that of inspection. Any one of them would gladly turn 
from the work to accept a professorship in education. 
If we ask them why, they will tell us that the fundamen- 
tal reason is the desire to escape from the inevitable fate 
of a formal, routine service. University inspection has 
everywhere been characterized chiefly by the construc- 
tiveness of its poHcy. The universities have sought, as 
best they might, to turn to the high schools, through the 
ofhce of the inspector, all the forces of their influence 
available for that purpose toward the development of 
better high schools. They have most frequently led in 
the advocacy of a broader and more Hberal programme 
of studies for the secondary stage of education. 

A most common oversight of those who advocate a 
purely bureaucratic management of inspection is the 
tendency to take as standards those States where there 
is no State university. They overlook the fact that here 
is a great co-ordinate force in the field of State education 
which is not to be found in Massachusetts or New York; 
that the institution representing this force is inseparably 
bound up, in its interests, with high schools and normal 
schools; that the logical solution of the problem is, 
therefore, in a State board, through which these differ- 
ent forces and State supervision, duly co-ordinated, may 
develop harmoniously in all their interrelationships, as 



264 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

has already been pointed out in the chapters on Boards 
of Education and Supervision. 

The recent development of inspection in the South 
indicates that there has been in the minds of those who 
have organized it a clear recognition of a distinct advan- 
tage in having university co-operation in this work. A 
similar attitude is noted in the recent changes in Iowa, 
Kansas, and Ohio, although not so distinct as in the 
Southern adjustment. 

It would be unfortunate for both high-school and 
university education, if a day should come when States 
should undertake to determine all standards of inter- 
relationship between pubUc secondary schools, normal 
schools, and universities without co-operation among 
these institutions and the consequent free and ready 
transfer of the vitalizing principles of growth. Such a 
result would seem inevitably to lead to a state of rigid 
formalism in education on a plane of mediocrity such as 
no nation or age has ever yet witnessed. 

In his study of "Admission to College by Certificate," 
Professor Joseph L. Henderson, visitor of schools for the 
University of Texas, has summed up the matter fairly 
when he advocates that the work of visitation and classi- 
fication of schools be conducted by State universities in 
all States where this has long been the practice. 

In some situations he would favor a control shared by 
the State university and the State department. In such 
cases, the State department would give attention to the 
enforcement of all legal requirements such as afifect phys- 
ical conditions, or the status of different types of schools 
to be organized. This would leave the determination of 
scholastic standards mainly to the universities. 

In cases where boards are in control, he holds that 
universities should assist in maintaining such standards 



THE INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 265 

as are necessary to the successful use of the certificating 
system of college entrance. 

In larger district organization he sees also an advan- 
tage to the different States included in toning up their 
respective systems and giving a still higher standard for 
the stronger schools. He suggests the desirability even 
of a national system of standardizing through the Na- 
tional Association of State Universities. 

He closes with these words: *'No system of certifica- 
tion which does not regard the welfare of the schools 
and colleges alike and which does not bring them to- 
gether in intimate co-operation for the upbuilding of the 
entire school system will meet the demands which gave 
rise to the fundamental idea of admission to college by 
certificate." ^ 

Probably no one has come nearer to stating a clear 
basis for adjustment in this new field of administrative 
effort. Given a State board with sufficient authority, 
and with clearly defined powers and duties covering this 
particular aspect of a State system of education, and it 
would seem possible to elaborate a scheme of co-opera- 
tion which would work to the general advantage of all 
concerned. The treatments suggested by Professor Hen- 
derson for the different types presented by present 
State organizations would then help at least to point 
the way to effective solutions. 

^ See "Admission to College by Certificate," by Joseph L. Hender- 
son, Teachers College, Columbia University, Contributions to Educa- 
tion, 1912, especially pp. 168-9. 



CHAPTER XV 

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 

One very vital phase of the administration of instruc- 
tion and one directly related to the supervision of schools 
is the problem of securing normal attendance. Of what 
good is it that society maintain schools at such cost to 
all the people unless the ends for which they are estab- 
lished be attainable? And how can they be attainable 
if a considerable proportion of those who should avail 
themselves of the privileges of free schooling refuse or 
fail to attend? The fifth of those principles, on w^hich 
schools are believed to be established and maintained 
as a public charge, reads as follows: ''In order to insure 
the general effectiveness of such a system society must, 
by legal compulsion if necessary, see to it that parents 
keep their children in school long enough to enable them 
to get at least the minimum of knowledge, wisdom, and 
skill necessary to the highest good of the individual and 
the well-being of the State." ^ 

I. Causes Affecting Attendance at School 

There are numerous causes which tend to affect at- 
tendance at school in almost any given community. The 
distance which pupils have to go, or obstructions, nat- 
ural or artificial, may cause irregular attendance. Fre- 

^ See chapter V, p. 67. 
266 



SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 267 

quently in the outlying districts of cities homes are very 
much scattered. The relatively small population makes 
it difficult to adjust the distribution of buildings. Some 
famihes are sure to be left too far from the school to 
enable smaller children to attend with regularity. Some- 
times there is a difficult barrier such as a dangerous rail- 
road crossing. In the country, likewise, it frequently 
happens that distances are too great, or roads impassable 
on account of mud or a swollen stream. 

For those having some distance to walk to school very 
rainy or severely cold weather is likely to affect the at- 
tendance. One of the most fruitful causes of absence, 
however, is sickness, or quarantine on account of con- 
tagious diseases. This cause operates in both city and 
country and presents a serious problem in many cases. 
The whole question of health calls for very careful super- 
vision as directly affecting the instructional work of the 
schools. 

Lack of proper clothing or books, and often lack of 
food among the very poor in cities, are other causes for 
absence or total non-attendance unless there is careful 
supervision, and provision made for the clothing, food, 
and books necessary. Closely alHed to these causes is the 
support of large families on meagre incomes, which makes 
the work of the older children in the family a bread-and- 
butter necessity. 

A dislike for school and indifference of parents as to 
the need of education have been found to be fruitful 
sources of absenteeism of pupils from the pubhc schools 
both in city and in country. These causes, singly or in 
combination, frequently lead to more serious results than 
just absence from school. Here is to be found a funda- 
mental cause for truancy, which soon becomes chronic 
and often leads to vagrancy or something worse. It 



268 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

is here, chiefly, where parental schools and reformatories 
get their inmates. 

In the rural districts absence of older pupils who should 
be in high school is due largely to the fact that often 
the high schools are not free to pupils from outside the 
districts by which they are established. The price of 
tuition then becomes the drawback and keeps a large 
percentage of this group out of school at a premature 
stage in their education. It will thus be seen that the 
problem of school attendance takes on many forms and 
calls for much careful supervision. 

2. Legislation Affecting Attendance 

In recent years the problem of irregular attendance 
has become a matter of such concern as to enhst the 
attention of State legislators very generally. According 
to the United States commissioner^ there were, prior to 
1900, over thirty States that had enacted laws for com- 
pulsory attendance. At first the legislation was not of 
a character calculated to be effective. More recently, 
however, a different type of legislation has come into use. 
All States in the North in 19 10 required attendance 
through compulsory-attendance laws. Closely alhed to 
this compulsory-attendance legislation is child-labor leg- 
islation. This also shows a marked advance, especially 
in the later forms of legislation which make the laws 
enacted much more effective. In 191 1 alone important 
measures improving child-labor provisions were adopted 
in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hamp- 
shire, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.^ 

1 Com. of Education Report, 191 1, vol. I, pp. 17-18. 

2 See U. S. Com. Report., op. cit., pp. 104-5. 



SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 269 

3. The Question of Free Transportation 

States are also beginning to provide, through legisla- 
tion, for the free transportation to and from school of 
children living beyond certain distances from the school 
centre. This is in order to overcome the inequality of 
the cost of education because of unequal distances. It 
is all a part of the movement toward consolidation of 
rural schools with the purpose, through co-operation, of 
getting better and larger educational facilities for the chil- 
dren of the country. Even in cities a similar provision 
has to be made. The following quotation taken from 
the report of Associate Superintendent Haaren, as given 
in the Annual Report of the City Superintendent of 
Schools of the City of New York for 191 2, ^ indicates a 
situation existing in that city: 

*'It is, of course, a nice question to determine what 
duty devolves upon the city to furnish transportation to 
the children attending its schools, but there is no ques- 
tion that if such were not furnished, not only would 
there be a great decrease in the amount of money al- 
lowed by the State for the instruction of the children, 
and an increase in the difficulty of enforcing the com- 
pulsory education law, but a great decrease in the op- 
portunity for education afforded the children, and a 
consequent loss to the city and State in intelligent citi- 
zenship." Here is a concise statement of the signifi- 
cance of the whole matter. In this instance it is an oc- 
casion for city legislation. Undoubtedly there is here 
presented a problem affecting a number of our larger 
cities. In most instances the portable schoolhouse fur- 
nishes a fairly good solution; but there are always some 
situations on the extreme borders, or where people live 
^ See p. 287 of the Fourteenth Annual Report. 



270 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

scattered through a commercial district, in which there 
are not enough children in one place to render this ar- 
rangement an economical one. 

Certainly it is true of high schools that there are fre- 
quently too few to bring out the normal attendance in 
a city. The cost of transportation in time and money 
gets to the point where it is too burdensome or where it 
outweighs interest in further education. This is a ques- 
tion in city management of schools which calls for a 
much more careful study and adjustment, in many in- 
stances, than it has yet received. 

4. Free Text-Book Laws 

In many of the States, especially in the northeastern 
groups, free text-book laws are in force. This eliminates 
the question of cost to families in this particular as a 
bar from attendance at school. In still other States the 
laws permit boards of education to provide books for 
*' indigent children." This seems to be a survival of 
the idea of free schools for the poor. It can hardly be 
said to take the place of free text-books outright to all 
alike. When it comes to providing food and clothing, 
the problem is a different one. Some cities do provide 
free lunches for ill-fed children, and a number of cities 
provide lunches at actual cost. But the problem of 
clothing has to be handled usually through the co-opera- 
tion of some one or more charitable organizations. In 
the city of New York out of about one third of the school 
children, this being the number examined by physicians 
in 191 2, nearly ten thousand children were found to be 
suffering from malnutrition. While this subject belongs 
properly under a discussion of health, yet these figures 
give a glimpse of the importance of the question of proper 
feeding of children as related to their effective instruc- 



SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 271 

tion. It is certainly a question as to how far compul- 
sory-attendance laws may be enforced without making 
provision for feeding and for all other necessities that go 
along with that physical condition essential to vigorous 
mental growth. 

There seems to be a decided misconception in some 
quarters as to the purpose and necessity of lightening 
the burden of education upon famiHes by providing gen- 
eral school suppKes, text-books, and tuition free, and at 
general pubUc expense. Here and there may be heard 
the charge of paternaHsm, either muttered or loudly pro- 
claimed, according to the type of objector. Let it be 
not forgotten, however, that these items fall far short 
of covering the cost to parents of large, or even moder- 
ately large, famihes of keeping their children in school. 
The problem of clothing alone, according to prevailing 
standards in most urban communities, is the cause of 
much anxious planning and economizing in many an 
honest citizen's home. There is Httle danger, under 
stringent attendance and child-labor laws, of any hurt- 
ful paternalism. 

5. Free Tuition in High Schools 

Legislation is not lacking in some States whereby free 
tuition in high schools is provided for all. Indeed, there 
is a recent tendency toward free high schools in a num- 
ber of the States, especially in the North Central and 
mountain States. Many of the laws are as yet inade- 
quate or faulty. For instance, here is a State where 
there is a constitutional limitation to the amount which 
may be levied for school purposes. In a considerable 
number of village districts, and especially in mining or 
manufacturing regions, the full levy is required, and 
more, to support anything like adequate elementary 



272 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

schools. In such a State, in order to make a free-tui- 
tion law constitutionally vaHd, it is necessary to limit 
what a district may pay for such purposes to ''funds 
not otherwise appropriated." In such cases, often the 
most needy, it is impossible for the non-high-school dis- 
trict to pay any tuition. 

California meets this in a most effective way. All 
non-high-school territory in a county is taxed by the 
county supervisors to the amount necessary to pay all 
tuition accounts incurred by the attendance of pupils in 
this territory upon near-by high schools. The tuition 
in this case, as it should always be, is the actual per- 
capita cost of operating the school attended, including 
in the estimate interest on the money invested in the 
school plant. 

6. Absence from School as a Factor in Retardation 
and Elimination 

There is no doubt but that absence from school, what- 
ever the cause, is a strong factor in the retardation and 
ultimate elimination of pupils from their classes. Doc- 
tor Leonard P. Ayres finds in irregular attendance one 
of the important causes of retardation. He estimates 
that less than three fourths of the children in our cities 
continue in attendance as much as three fourths of the 
year. "Irregular attendance," he concludes, ''is ac- 
companied by a low percentage of promotions. Low 
percentage of promotions is a potent factor in bringing 
about retardation. Retardation results in ehmination." ^ 

Doctor C. H. Keyes, in his study of progress through 
the grades of city schools,^ found that repetition of 

^"Laggards in Our Schools," Leonard P. Ayres. Charities Publica- 
tion Committee, New York, 1909, chap. XII. 

2 "Progress through the Grades of City Schools," C. H. Keyes, 
"Teachers College, Columbia University, Contributions to Education,'* 
1911. 



SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 273 

courses is directly related to absence from school. Out 
of 1,797 cases absent 0-9 days were found only 14 per 
cent of repeaters; out of 231 cases absent 20-29 days, 
40 per cent; while 209 cases absent 50 days or over fur- 
nished 73 per cent. He also found that home environ- 
ment had a very direct bearing on progress; also that 
changing schools was responsible for very many cases 
of repetitions. On the latter point he says: 'Changing 
schools during the year about doubles the probability 
that a pupil will repeat the work of the year in question." 
Superintendent Maxwell, of New York City, in his 
annual report for 1912,^ calls attention to the fact that 
the chances for promotion not only increase as the period 
of attendance increases, but that the chances are very 
much greater. He concludes ''that there is no more 
dominant factor in promotion than regularity of atten- 
dance." 

7. The Truancy Problem. 

The truancy problem has been and still is a persistent 
one. The care of this type of delinquency is not only 
expensive but it leads to so many unwholesome after 
effects when the health of the social organism is consid- 
ered. Because of its productiveness of evil, it is desir- 
able that every possible means be utiKzed for its reduc- 
tion to the minimum in our public schools. 

Among the instrumentalities that have been devised 
for the purpose of counteracting or overcoming truancy 
may be mentioned the following: i. Special or ungraded 
classes. 2. Courses strongly industrial, such as prevo- 
cational courses for boys. 3. Transfer to rural environ- 
ment for agricultural and dairying pursuits along with 
academic training. 4. Parental schools organized in the 
^ Op. ciL, p. 86. 



274 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

city. 5. Organizations on the "Boyville" or ''George, 
Jr., Republic" basis, in which the organization of boys 
looks after the individual and administers all necessary 
correction. Such organizations are easiest to operate 
where the boys are segregated at least into special classes. 

Judging from such experiments as have thus far been 
made, it seems likely that much of this evil would be 
ehminated by the estabhshment of the intermediate 
school on a departmental basis (see chapter XVII) and 
the general introduction of a larger amount of industrial 
work above the sixth grade. If, added to this, there 
could be more attention given to the organization of all 
activities of the school on a ''community-life" basis, it 
seems likely that the major part of this evil would be- 
come extinct by natural processes. And as for any 
remnant that might persist, a careful attention to phys- 
ical or mental defects, or to the counteracting of home 
conditions extremely abnormal, should cause a practi- 
cally complete disappearance of the defect. 

The attendance department of the Oakland, Cal., 
schools, in its report for 1911-12, puts special emphasis 
on inadequate home conditions as a cause of truancy and 
non-attendance. The parental home is there recom- 
mended as a remedy. 

Superintendent Maxwell, of New York City, finds that 
a very fruitful cause of truancy is in "the issuance of 
employment certificates to boys and girls who have not 
secured employment." ^ He recommends as a remedy 
that school records, on the basis of which alone certifi- 
cates can be issued, be withheld until a more advanced 
grade is reached and until evidence is produced from 
the prospective employer that the pupil will be employed 
if the certificate is granted. 

1 Op. cU., p. 241. 



SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 275 

We are told that 17 per cent of city school systems 
make provision for morally exceptional children. ^ These 
provisions are in the form of (i) classes for the delin- 
quent, incorrigible, and refractory, or (2) parental and 
residential schools. The first largely predominates. 

8. Plans for Supervision of Attendance 

A very effective organization for a medium-sized city 
for taking care of this problem of attendance in its vari- 
ous aspects is that of the city of Newark, N. J. This is 
a city of about three hundred and sixty thousand popu- 
lation. The head of the attendance department is Su- 
pervisor Charles A. MacCall, who has been in this ser- 
vice for about eleven years. He is assisted by a number 
of attendance officers sufficient to look after each district 
of the city promptly and thoroughly. These officers are 
invested with authority to enforce the compulsory-at- 
tendance and child-labor laws. There is a complete 
system of reports. The attendance department co-oper- 
ates with (a) teachers and principals, (b) parents, (c) the 
medical inspector, (d) the parental school (not under the 
board of education), (e) the juvenile court. It seeks the 
co-operation of employers of children and also brings 
them to account for any violation of the child-labor laws 
for which they are responsible. The department also 
seeks to find ways and means for providing clothing 
where the lack of it keeps children from school. This is 
done through charitable organizations and through the 
aid of philanthropic citizens of means. The city is pro- 
viding two buildings, one on each side of the city, es- 
pecially planned and equipped with proper facilities for 
the rational training of truants and other dehnquents. 

^Bulletin, 1911, Na 14, U. S. Bureau of Education. "Provision for 
Exceptional Children in Public Schools," p. t,^. 



276 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

In dealing with these classes the officials are actuated 
fundamentally by the idea that the work is one of sal- 
vage to society of efficient, law-abiding members rather 
than simply to protect society for the time being by a 
forced segregation and isolation of those morally defec- 
tive. Through the activity of this department for the 
year 1910-11, 24,764 pupils were returned to public 
schools and 2,705 pupils were returned to parochial and 
private schools. 

As regards the child-labor law of New Jersey under 
which the attendance supervisor was working, Mr. Mac- 
Call expresses the significant opinion that too much 
stress is laid upon the age qualification and too little 
upon the educational and physical quahfications.^ 

Here we have reviewed in a brief way one of the most 
vitally important departments of supervision having to 
do with effective instruction in our schools. The fol- 
lowing words from Professor Thorndike serve well for a 
conclusion to this chapter i^ "Thus to release people more 
and more from ordinary labor when they are young and 
protect them by proper early training from disease, ig- 
norance, waste, misery, and baseness is for the general 
good. Of the lifetime one has to live for the world, a 
large portion — say from eighteen to twenty-four years, 
according to the individual's nature — is best spent in ac- 
tivities chosen for their value in making his whole life 
finer and more serviceable, irrespective of their immedi- 
ate money price. The community that bravely insists 
on protecting the young against being used up in help- 
ing the community get a living soon finds itself getting 
a better living, and other things of much more worth.'* 

* See 55th Annual Report of the Board of Education, Newark, N. J., 
1910-11, pp. 206-211. 
2 "Education," E. L. Thorndike, Macmillan, 1912, pp. 236-8. 



CHAPTER XVI 
PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND HEALTH 

I. The Principle Involved 

The fourth principle by which the efficiency of our 
educational system may be tested is:^ ''The situation 
demands the most economic treatment of the problem 
of education, financially, in the matter of time, and also 
in health conditions, that is consistent with its most effec- 
tive administration." Society is rapidly learning that a 
wise economy in social organization demands a maximum 
of conservation of individual life and health, with the 
maximum of salvage possible from those who are physi- 
cally defective. The minimum attainment sought with 
the latter group is to render each individual honestly 
self-sustaining. Such a result means more than that to 
the individual. It carries with it the consciousness of 
independence, a feeling closely related to that of self- 
respect. 

2. Relation of Health to Attendance and Instruction 

Attention has already been called to the relation which 
health bears to attendance at school. No less signifi- 
cant is its relation to the successful instruction of those 
who remain at school. It has long been known that 
certain chronic pathological conditions in children tend 
^ See p. 75, chapter V. 
277 



278 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

to nullify the effects of instruction even under circum- 
stances otherwise most favorable. How can the child 
whose head is racked with pain because of decaying 
teeth, or whose breathing is impaired by adenoids or 
catarrh, or whose aching head throbs because of strain 
upon eyes that are out of focus be expected to get any 
satisfactory results from study? 

On the point of attendance Doctor A. H. Hogarth 
says:^ ^'Systematic medical inspection will eventually 
lead to an increased attendance of children at school. 
The report of the interdepartmental committee on medi- 
cal inspection shows that the various medical officers, 
who have already acted on behalf of the local education 
authorities, have done much toward improving the at- 
tendance of the children at school, and have frequently 
prevented unnecessary school closure, in cases of out- 
breaks of epidemic diseases." Likewise Doctor Gulick 
and Doctor Ayres, in their collaborated work on medical 
inspection of schools, say:^ "We are beginning to find 
out that many of our backward pupils are backward 
purely and simply because, through physical defects, 
they are unable to handle the work of the school pro- 
gramme. What these defects are and the causes that 
lie behind them are things that we must know. If we 
do not know them we must find them out and guard 
against them. Education without health is useless." In 
his report for 1910-11, Doctor George J. Holmes, super- 
visor of medical inspection for the city of Newark, N. J., 
shows a decrease in days lost by quarantine of 40,000 
as compared with the previous year. 

^"Medical Inspection of Schools," A. H. Hogarth, London, Henry 
Frowde, Oxford Univ. Press, 1909, p. 66. 

2 "Medical Inspection of Schools," Luther G. GuHck, M.D., and 
Leonard P. Ayres. New York Charities Pub. Com., 1908, p. 16. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND HEALTH 279 



3. Health Supervision Demanded as Result of 
Neglect 

A knowledge of the need of spontaneous play out-of- 
doors, of vigorous physical exercise in field and gymna- 
sium as an offset to the evil influences of an indoor, sed- 
entary life, is as old, at least, as our knowledge of the 
literature of the ancient Greeks. In our anxiety to ac- 
complish great results in intellectual advancement we 
have shortened the hours for such exercise in our schools; 
and because of the false economy of a grossly material 
age we have denied to the schools the necessary open- 
air space and the appliances for out-of-door stimulation 
of the physical individual. It is, indeed, high time that 
health, hygiene, and playground evangelists should call 
attention vigorously to this neglect and the results it 
is bringing upon us. 

4. Medical Inspection the First Need 

No scheme for education is complete to-day which 
does not, at least, undertake to make provision for these 
conserving factors among the forces of the schools. And 
what is involved in such a provision? First of all, skilled 
medical inspection under the supervision of a man or 
woman who is not only a trained physician but also 
understands the principles of physical education. Such 
a supervisor must have under his direction enough assis- 
tants to enable him to cover the field of his ofhce thor- 
oughly. 

This will involve more than medical inspectors. Those 
who look after the physical education directly should be 
subject to the medical inspector's direction in so far as 
is necessary in order to carry out the prescriptions made 



280 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

for corrective exercises for those having defects to be 
overcome or cured. There will also be needed trained 
nurses. These will aid at the free clinics which will be 
conducted as a result of such defects as decaying teeth, 
adenoids, and other remediable conditions. They will 
also follow up recommendations made to parents by 
visits, in order to make plain to those who do not under- 
stand the necessity and importance of such treatment 
as has been recommended. 

5. The Psychological Clinic Next 

Certainly not less important, though more difficult 
than the discovery and treatment of physical defects, are 
the detection and effective dealing with mental defects. 
This calls for the psychological clinic, conducted by one 
or more skilled specialists who know the tests and their 
application in determining whether the child is mentally 
normal, subnormal, or supernormal. The presence of 
such an expert or department in the school system will 
involve also the provision for special classes for the 
proper treatment of those found to be abnormal, with 
teachers especially quahfied to apply the educational 
processes prescribed. 

6. Medical Supervision of Games and Sports 
Required 

Either this organization of the health department of 
the schools or else the municipal health officer will look 
carefully after the first appearance of contagious or in- 
fectious diseases among pupils and will promptly take 
the steps necessary for their eradication. The depart- 
ment of physical education, in co-operation with the 
health department of the schools, will closely supervise 
the games and sports of pupils or students in order (a) 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND HEALTH 281 

to see that special cases are getting the particular treat- 
ment called for; and (b) in order to forbid a form of 
exercise that is too excessive on the part of those who 
are suffering from such defects as impeded breathing, 
heart weakness, or malnutrition. 

7. Emphasis Should Be Placed on Hygienic Conditions 

To be most efficient, emphasis will be placed on pro- 
phylactic treatment; that is, the health department will 
seek to prevent disease by strict attention to hygienic 
conditions and by cultivating respect for the laws of 
health. The water-supply and drinking facihties, dust- 
free schoolrooms, hygienic seating will become impor- 
tant elements in the work of this department. Every 
county system, city, normal school, college or university 
has need of such a department, thoroughly organized 
and equipped for good, telling service. The city high 
school of twelve hundred or more pupils should have 
its resident physician in charge of all such work. The 
university with its larger group of students should have 
a strong department, calculated to conserve the health 
of the entire student body to the highest degree pos- 
sible. The best knowledge and skill of men and women 
trained for such work should be available here, repre- 
senting the last word in applied science along all these 
lines. 

8. Specially Trained Experts Needed 

In order to get those properly prepared for such ser- 
vice, States should offer university courses with special 
inducements for men and women to prepare themselves 
to meet the standards of knowledge and skill demanded. 
There will need also to be a liberal pohcy as to salaries 



282 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

to be paid such experts if anything hke the ability that 
the situation demands is to be available for this field. 
It is useless to expect those who can readily command 
Hberal incomes from ordinary practice to devote their 
time to this work in the schools for a pittance. When 
we consider the interests involved, the lives at stake, 
the possible retardations of children, the waste in the 
schools because of neglect of health conditions, the prog- 
ress being made seems too slow, the social consciousness 
awakens all too tardily. 

The facts show, however, that educational growth in 
this respect has been very rapid. The first school sys- 
tem to give any attention to medical inspection was 
San Antonio, Tex., in 1890. This came because of an 
epidemic of smallpox, and was confined to the preven- 
tion of such outbreaks. It was Boston, in 1894, that 
first undertook anything hke a complete organization 
of this work. According to the reports made by the 
Russell Sage Foundation in 191 1, or fifteen years after 
the initiation of the work in Boston, out of 1,038 cities 
reporting there were 443 which had medical inspection 
of schools. Out of this number 337 reported the ad- 
ministration of the inspection to be under the board of 
education and 106 by the city board of health. 

9. Important Recommendations of American Medical 
Association 

The American Medical Association, in a report of its 
committee on the medical inspection of schools, recom- 
mends two divisions of inspection as advisable: (i) The 
field of educational hygiene under boards of education. 
(2) Care and control of contagious and infectious dis- 
eases under boards of health. The purposes of the work 
of educational hygiene under boards of education were 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND HEALTH 283 

outlined in full by this committee. They seem to be so 
complete and excellent that they are here quoted in 
fullii 

Purposes of the Work 

1. The establishment of biennial, annual, and, when necessary, 
more frequent skilled physical and developmental examinations 
of pupils and students by a staff of experts. The establishment 
of initial examination of pupils by the teaching force of the 
schools, as far as the teaching force is qualified, prior to the 
skilled examinations by experts. 

2. By effective action, based on the data of these examina- 
tions, to secure (a) the correction of physical anomalies and 
thus remove the growth barriers of children and youths, and 
{b) whenever possible and practicable, to adjust educational 
activities to meet the requirements of physical and mental 
health, growth, and development, and thus establish a special 
field of education for the maintenance of continuous health and 
development supervision of pupils and students. 

3. To maintain a scientific and systematic study of mental 
retardation and mental deviation of pupils and students by 
skilled examination, and, whenever possible and practicable, by 
skilled training in special schools. 

4. To establish skilled physical and health examinations of 
candidates for teachers' positions prior to their election to de- 
termine vital fitness for their work, and thereafter to maintain 
continuous supervision of health and efficiency to teachers as 
related to the work of the schools. 

5. (a) To organize and supervise courses of technical instruc- 
tion in hygiene for pupils, students, and teachers, in the means 
of conservation of physical and mental health, growth, and 
development; in the means of correction and prevention of 
defects, disease, and degeneracy; (b) whenever necessary for 
efficiency, to give practical and technical instruction to the 
teaching force of the schools, while engaged in teaching, in the 
initial physical and developmental examination of pupils and 
in the skilled physical and developmental and psychocHnical 
examination of exceptional pupils, abnormal and supernormal. 

6. To establish and maintain well-equipped medical anthro- 

^ Journal American Medical Association, 57, 1751-7, Nov. 25, 1911. 



284 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

pometric and psychoclinical laboratories in the public schools 
which shall afford opportunity and equipment: 

(a) For sufficiently skilled medical, anthropometric and psy- 
choclinical examination of exceptional pupils and of all pupils 
requiring special examination; 

(b) For such technical training of teachers in the laboratory 
and experimental phases of educational work, connected with the 
physical and mental examination of pupils, in clinical psychol- 
ogy and in experimental pedagogy as is essential for the intelli- 
gent handling of pupils; 

(c) For essential work in hygiene and sanitation. 

7. To exercise expert sanitary supervision in the planning and 
maintenance of school buildings and grounds. 

8. To bring about the establishment of dental and medical 
clinics for pupils whose parents are financially unable to provide 
essential medical and dental aid. 

9. Whenever possible and practicable, to co-operate with 
State, county, and city health officers in the detection of and 
reporting of contagious diseases. 

10. Each department of educational hygiene to constitute a 
bureau of practical investigation and research in educational 
hygiene, and as such to co-operate with the State bureaus of 
educational hygiene whose functions will or ought to be the 
organization and supervision of State-wide work and investiga- 
tion in this special field of education — looking forward to the 
establishment also of a national bureau of educational hygiene. 

An approximate grouping of pupils, based on the data of 
physical and developmental examinations which ought to follow 
the examination of pupils and students, i. Those for whom 
medical and dental aid is essential. 2. Those whose respira- 
tory or circulatory systems are defective or are poorly devel- 
oped, for whom a larger amount of out-of-door life and physical 
activity is essential, or other modification of school activities 
necessary. 3. Those whose nervous systems are defective or 
poorly developed and who require an unusual amount of out- 
of-door Hfe, physical activity, special care, and skilled training. 
4. The segregation of pupils requiring an unusual amount of 
physical activity for possible mental growth — both sexes. 5. 
Segregation of pupils of truancy and criminal tendencies, or 
otherwise showing more or less degeneracy, and assignment to 
special schools with special training. 6. Segregation of men- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND HEALTH 285 

tally defective pupils and assignment to special schools. 7. 
The segregation of supernormal pupils and assignment to special 
schools. 8. As far as practicable, the grouping of pupils in 
accordance with development age. 

In this programme, school nurses are assistants to the staff. 
Their field work is essentially as follows: 

To assist members of the staff in the skilled examination of 
pupils and otherwise as assistance is needed; to assist teachers 
in making preUminary surveys of their pupils and in giving ini- 
tial examinations, notifying parents of essential needs of pupils, 
etc.; visiting parents and in all justifiable ways establishing 
effective co-operation between home and school. Further, the 
function of the school nurse is that of the social educator in the 
field of hygiene. As such, the work of the school nurse is one 
of high order. 

The staff of experts, the teaching force of the schools, and 
school nurses, working from the standpoint of education, form 
an educational corps to secure the effective co-operation of home, 
school, and school authorities in meeting the requirements of the 
physical and mental health and growth of pupils. When edu- 
cational means fail, the law must remedy instances of neglect 
of health and growth of children. 

Each department of educational hygiene should act, as far 
as practicable and consistent with the required established 
work, as a bureau of investigation and research. 

The functions of departments of educational hygiene are two- 
fold: I. Carrying out certain established work of the schools. 
2. Investigation and research of problems of health and devel- 
opment, of clinical psychology and of experimental pedagogy. 

Two classes of experts stand out as pre-eminently qualified 
for work in this special field of education: i. The psychologist 
educator. An expert in child hygiene, in educational and clinical 
psychology, and in practical experimental pedagogy; skilled in 
physical and mental diagnosis of normal and abnormal growth 
and development and having a knowledge of elementary medi- 
cine; a thoroughly trained broad-gauged expert in education. 
2. The skilled physician who has had sufficient training and 
acquaintance with educational work. 

Your committee, therefore, joins in a recommendation al- 
ready made by Doctor Terman, of the department of education 
of Leland Stanford University, essentially as follows: That steps 



286 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

be taken to bring about a conference of representatives from 
the United States department (bureau) of education, the Na- 
tional Education Association, the American Medical Association, 
the American Institute of Homoeopathy and other national medi- 
cal associations and the Russell Sage Foundation for child wel- 
fare, which committee, after joint consideration of the problems 
involved, shall formulate and recommend alternative systems of 
educational hygiene which in time would be accepted as stand- 
ard requirements in this special field of education. 

10. Legislation Providing for Medical Inspection 

The department of child hygiene of the Russell Sage 
Foundation has done and is doing a great work in help- 
ing to bring about better conditions for school children 
as regards health and general sanitary conditions. 
States are coming to realize the need of definite action 
in regard to these things. Each year legislation occurs 
somewhere placing emphasis on playgrounds, medical 
inspection, sanitary buildings — one and all of these. 
The sanitary building laws of Ohio and Indiana passed 
in 191 1 are good illustrations. 

Legislation providing for medical inspection accord- 
ing to statistics furnished by the Russell Sage Founda- 
tion^ for 191 2 was established in nineteen States and the 
District of Columbia. Of these, seven States have man- 
datory laws, ten permissive, and the other two States 
and District of Columbia have regulations effective with 
the same force as law. The following statement from 
the same source is a good description of the provisions 
such laws should contain: *' Every such law should make 
provision for frequent inspections of children by duly 
qualified school physicians to detect and exclude cases 
of contagious disease. It should provide for examina- 

1 "A Comparative Study of Public-School Systems in the Forty-Eight 
States," 1912, p. 31. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND HEALTH 287 

tions of all the children by school doctors to detect any 
physical defects which may prevent the children from 
receiving the full benefit of their school work, or which 
may require that the work be modified to avoid injury 
to the child. It should empower school physicians to 
conduct examinations of teachers and janitors, and 
make regular inspections of buildings, premises, and 
drinking water, to insure their sanitary condition." 

II. The Playground Movement 

No less important as a conservator of the health and 
vigor of school children is the playground movement. 
There now exists in this country a Playground and Rec- 
reation Association of America. The chief aim of this 
organization is to act as a propaganda for more and bet- 
ter play and recreation facilities for both children and 
adults. At the 191 1 meeting of this association it was 
reported that 22 cities, employing 643 workers, were 
actively engaged in playground work, and that in the 
12 months preceding about $3,000,000 was spent in 184 
cities for the improvement and establishment of play- 
grounds. 

Another indication of growth in the direction we are 
discussing is seen in recent legislation. In 191 1 Indiana 
passed laws providing for public playgrounds, baths, and 
comfort stations in first-class cities. Kansas provided a 
tax for parks and public playgrounds in cities. Massa- 
chusetts established supervision of sports on school play- 
grounds. Michigan provided for physical training in 
normal schools and city districts; the formation of cor- 
porations for maintaining playgrounds; and permission 
for districts to maintain school gymnasiums. Minne- 
sota provided for parks and playgrounds in cities. New 
Hampshire permitted town appropriations for public 



288 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

playgrounds. Ohio made it possible for boards of edu- 
cation to secure playgrounds. Pennsylvania provided 
for boards of recreation in first-class cities. Rhode 
Island established public playgrounds in Providence. 
Wisconsin made provision for physical training in cities 
and in normal schools and training-schools for teachers; 
and for school boards in cities to maintain gymnasiums, 
playgrounds, baths, etc. Thus it appears that this coun- 
try, following the example of leading European countries, 
is rapidly awakening to the needs of our situation along 
lines of public recreation and especially in our schools. 

12. The School Should Supervise the Play 

It will be seen that work so closely related to the in- 
structional work of the schools — in fact, constituting a 
part of the instruction itself — will be much more effective, 
more completely co-operative when administered under 
boards of education than when under separate boards. 
Where it is designed, however, to combine recreation 
for school children with that provided for adults, it 
seems apparent that a separate management should be 
provided. The sentiment of those who have closely 
studied the subject seems to favor a distinct treatment 
of the problem for children and youth as a part of the 
work of the school. Such, indeed, has long been the 
attitude of colleges and universities. 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 

I. Sequence in Education 

All learning of the schools, of whatever grade, is re- 
lated. It simply represents the sum total of race ac- 
complishment in acquiring useful arts, in setting up 
institutions, and in organizing systems of thought with 
reference to various aspects of nature and of human 
Hfe individually and in association. In this it consti- 
tutes a progression. Hence, practically all there is of 
sequence in the school processes is determined by the 
order of this progression. Briefly summarized, this se- 
quence would run somewhat as follows: 

(i) The school arts, such as language, drawing, simple 
construction; forming habits of observation 
and of arranging and recording results of ob- 
servation; numbering and classifying. 

(2) Simple thought processes, experimenting; learn- 

ing how to study world, race, and national 
movements; extending language study to those 
of other races; learning how to interpret nat- 
ural phenomena in terms of generalized for- 
mulas or principles; drawing, color work, and 
construction as applied to the arts of life. 

(3) Pushing out to some frontier of human knowledge; 

reorganizing thought systems in harmony with 
289 



290 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the progress made; arranging and applying 
groups of principles in the carrying forward of 
all human projects, as in (a) agriculture, (b) 
commerce, (c) the mechanic arts, (d) jurispru- 
dence, (e) medicine and surgery, (/) education 
and social betterment, (g) government, (h) re- 
ligion; extending knowledge and mastery of 
the expressional arts. 

Here we have given the basis for the three general 
groupings of an educational system, assuming all condi- 
tions normal and regular. In actual operation we find 
various Hmitations to this progression as related to in- 
dividuals — ^^limitations as to individual capacity, eco- 
nomic conditions, environment, or inclination. As a re- 
sult, at each stage provision should doubtless be made 
for the acquisition, in a more intensive form, of some 
skill or knowledge, or both, which shall equip such 
handicapped individuals with the ability to sustain 
themselves without becoming a social charge or a social 
menace. This takes no account of pathological cases 
demanding special remedial treatment rather than the 
ordinary educative processes of the school. In her work 
with special classes in the city of Newark, N. J., the 
supervisor of this department finds that by the appli- 
cation of the Binet-Simon tests there are frequently left 
on her hands children for whom education can do prac- 
tically nothing. Perhaps there is no better way than 
through the experience of the school for defectives to 
differentiate and segregate these pathological cases. 

2. Interdependence of the Three Stages of Education 

In these three successive stages of progression, rep- 
resenting the elementary, middle, and higher processes 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 291 

of education, each higher step is dependent upon the 
ones below it, while often one of the chief stimuli for 
acquiring the earlier steps is found in those steps higher 
up. The whole system needs, therefore, to be so co- 
ordinated as to admit of the free action of all stimuli, 
whether acting from below upward or drawing from 
above upon those below. As the streams flow down 
from the mountains, spreading into the valleys and 
across the plains to nourish the vast and varied growths 
of a continent's vegetation, so, in a sense, should there 
flow down from the frontiers of human research into 
the hidden truths of nature and of human life streams 
of refreshing knowledge to quicken and transform all 
the arts and institutions of man into ever better and 
more highly perfected types. 

3. Basis for Organization of Educational Institutions 

Such a conception of education presupposes a scheme 
of organization for its administration such that provi- 
sion shall be made for the dissemination and apphcation 
of all useful learning among the out-of-school classes as 
well as to those who are of school age. How else are 
we to make any real progress in the fundamental arts 
and processes which underHe and vitalize all human in- 
terests? This modern way of viewing the educational 
situation gives quite a different significance to the work 
of our schools and colleges. Instead of following a tradi- 
tion as we have been doing until now, we are beginning 
to look about us in order to discover, if possible, the 
most direct Hues of relationship and contact of what- 
ever we undertake to teach with the real, essential, well- 
rounded human life and action. Night schools, schools 
for special classes, extension courses, correspondence in- 



292 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

struction, expert commissions, and advisory boards are 
some of the results already observable. 

May we not justly say that it is the chief end and 
aim of public education thus to provide for the highest 
possible well-being of all classes of people of whatever 
calling or social status they may be, each in accordance 
with his ability to acquire and to use? It follows, then, 
that science and the results of scientific research, whether 
it be in regard to material things, life as manifested in 
nature generally or human life as it appears in man's 
social relations, should be capable of appropriation by 
the masses as far down as possible. In other words, we 
should begin as early as possible in the training of the 
young to turn over to them the fundamental truths in 
regard to all phenomena whether natural or social. To 
do this it becomes quite evident that all educational 
instrumentalities must essentially work in harmony, and 
that the organization of our school curricula must be 
such as to lead most directly and with a maximum 
economy of time to the ends sought. 

What, then, should be the basis for organization into 
particular types of the various kinds of educational in- 
stitutions needed in the accomplishment of the purposes 
and aims of an efficient system of popular education in 
a country like our own? This brings us to a difficult 
point at which, if we should err in our ultimate differ- 
entiation of types, we might, according to the opinions 
of some, bring about results disastrous to our cherished 
ideals of democracy. Chief among these ideals are those 
of equal opportunity to all and the efficiency of the 
individual in the social group. If we organize schools 
in types varying in accordance with the needs of the dif- 
ferent industries and professions, shall we not bring about 
a social stratification with a condition far removed from 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 293 

our idea of equality of opportunity? We frequently hear 
it said that the school should minister to the peculiar 
needs of the community which it serves. Do we mean 
by this that rural schools should be solely for those who 
are to practise the rural arts? or that city schools are 
solely for those interested in commerce, or the mechanic 
arts, or professional work, each varying in accordance 
with the extent to which any one or more of these con- 
ditions may prevail? Or should a cosmopolitan scheme 
of education be furnished ahke to both country and 
city so as to admit of that free passing from one to the 
other according as ability or incHnation on the part of 
the individual might seem to direct? Is not this what 
we really mean when we talk about equal opportunity? 

4. Problem of Differentiation of Pupils* Work 

But if we are correct in this latter inference, then there 
is something more to be provided for in our system of 
schools than merely to make it possible that each pre- 
pare according to ability or inclination. For how is the 
youth to know, or how are we to know, his peculiar 
tastes and capacities, in order that he may be directed 
along the lines of inclination or ability? It seems evi- 
dent that somewhere in the scheme, not too early to 
be premature, yet not too late to catch him in school, 
there must be a way and the means for testing each 
individual at least in the light of what we know to be 
the fundamental requirements of each general field of 
human endeavor. We should probably never be able 
to differentiate successfully, in this respect, as among 
the various mechanic arts or the professions; but we 
surely might do so as between these larger general 
groups, or even between individuals of either group when 



294 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

the training in skill and knowledge required is distinctly 
different in type. 

Generally speaking, we may safely dismiss this process 
of differentiation to the period of adolescence, or to the 
second of the three periods previously suggested. This 
amounts to saying that in the elementary grades, up 
to and including the sixth, no attention need be given 
to inclination or preference so far as they may relate to 
any particular choice of an occupation. Indeed, there is 
abundance of work peculiarly adapted to this period 
which should be had by all in order that each may enter 
fairly and with equal preparedness upon the lines of 
work in which he is to seek to discover himself or be 
discovered by his teachers. 

The vocationally selective courses offered in some of 
our high schools mark a certain progress along this line 
of differentiating pupils according to their respective 
abilities and inclinations as they may be found to be 
more or less clearly defined. But what are we to say 
in regard to the external forces expressed in social needs 
and quite as important in determining what the school 
shall undertake to teach? Here comes in the social sur- 
vey, covering a careful review of social demands and 
occupations, as a basis for indicating the educational 
needs of a given community. 

Recent experience in New York City in connection 
with the vocational guidance survey conducted by Miss 
Barrows is of interest in this connection. This survey 
was undertaken primarily as a means of determining 
what there was for children to do who, for economic 
reasons, must leave school as early as possible and go 
to work. The outcome seems to point definitely to a 
demand for vocational training rather than for an or- 
ganized effort to aid such children in getting suitable 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 295 

jobs. To express it in Miss Barrows's own words r^ 
"What the children want is vocational training. The 
kernel of truth in this popular movement for vocational 
guidance is the need of vocational training for children. 
Vocational guidance should mean guidance for training, 
not guidance for jobs." Carefully conducted surveys 
of industrial and other social conditions of a commu- 
nity should, if properly interpreted, give much useful and 
definite information desirable as a means by which to 
determine what subjects and exercises a school should 
offer in order to become most directly effective in serving 
the social needs of the community to which it ministers. 
It should always be borne in mind, however, that if all 
are to be at their best in service it may be necessary 
for some, perhaps many, to prepare for lines of work 
scarcely represented at all in the community where they 
are being educated. 

5. Organizing and Adapting Schools to Varying Needs 

If, then, we are agreed that the truly democratic type 
of education is cosmopolitan, our questioning now turns 
to the manner in which best to organize this type so as 
to adapt it to the needs of the different situations to be 
found in a country so varied as to population and in- 
dustries. 

There are certain typical and generally recognized 
situations which will serve us here. These are (i) the 
rural schools, including the one-room country school 
and the schools of the numerous agricultural villages; 
(2) city schools; (3) colleges, universities, technological 

^ "Report of the Vocational Guidance Survey," by Alice P. Barrows, 
Bulletin no. 9, Public Education Association. City of New York, 191 2, 
p. 14. 



296 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

and professional schools; (4) schools for the defective 
classes, as those for the blind, deaf, and feeble-minded. 

At no point in the system does it appear so difficult 
to secure the cosmopolitan school as in the case of the 
rural districts. In the old-time, one-teacher school it 
was quite possible, when the teacher knew the art of 
teaching, to teach the few subjects required very effec- 
tively. With the great increase in the number of things 
which we expect the schools to do, it has now become 
practically impossible for one teacher to handle all the 
work. At the same time, the schools are, in most in- 
stances, relatively very small. In fact, there are often 
too few pupils to enable the teacher to arouse enthu- 
siasm in school work. 

The only remedy for this situation seems to be in 
bringing the schools of several districts together for ele- 
mentary training and then estabHshing at a central point 
in each group of these consoKdated schools a high school. 
Such a group, for purposes of instruction, should con- 
stitute a unit for supervision. In this manner a com- 
plete and properly co-ordinated programme of studies 
and activities could be worked out and kept in effec- 
tive operation. The principal of the central high school 
could readily assume this local supervisory function, 
while the county superintendent, operating under a 
county board of education, would have general super- 
vision over all. The arrangement of such districting 
into convenient groups would be much better accom- 
plished if left to the county board with the expert assis- 
tance of the county superintendent, as has been pre- 
viously suggested.^ 

^ See chap. VII. 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 297 

6. Conditions Needed for Rural Schools 

The dominant note in such a scheme of education 
would naturally be found in rural rather than urban 
interests. At the same time, it should be possible for 
the pupil whose inclinations point to a business or 
professional career to find as good preparation available 
in the home district, as far as elementary and high-school 
training goes, as could be found in any city-school sys- 
tem. By such a plan the high school would be made as 
free to our country boys and girls as to their city cousins, 
a consummation now long overdue in most of the rural 
districts of America. An elementary training is a great 
blessing as far as it goes; but it attains fruition, so far 
as school training is concerned, only when followed at 
least by a high-school course. The former does Httle 
more than prepare one to become educated; the latter 
gives a good start in an actual education. Thus it is 
that the high school has become an inseparable part of 
our common-school system. 

This whole problem is as much a social and economic 
one as it is educational. Much educational work must 
be done among farmers before ever any adequate provi- 
sion can be made for modern rural schools, so as to make 
them in every way at least equal to those of the city, 
and with a natural environment far surpassing anything 
which the cities can provide. According to Foght ^ we 
are now ''spending $33.01 on the city child's education 
for every $13.17 on the rural child's." In some Cana- 
dian provinces^ the government offers subsidies as an 
inducement to districts to consolidate. Why would 
this not be a good thing for the States to do? Cer- 

1 H. W. Foght, "The American Rural School," 191 1, Macmillan, p. iS. 

2 U. S. Com. Report, 1907, I, 238. 



298 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

tainly, if we are ever to secure the development, in any 
efficient way, of agricultural education in our rural 
schools, we must first secure a more co-operative and 
compact organization, such as consolidation makes pos- 
sible. And all this means a change in the social and 
economic outlook of the people of our rural communities. 
The following paragraph taken from the report of the 
Michigan State commission on industrial and agricul- 
tural education^ sets forth fairly the situation with refer- 
ence to the necessity for widening the scope of educa- 
tion in the rural schools: ^'The one-room school has 
performed a large part of the education of the people in 
the past; but with the changed conditions in the coun- 
try and improvements in all forms of industry, and es- 
pecially in agriculture, such a school has become less 
and less able to meet the needs of the present genera- 
tion in preparing it for life's duties. In these schools 
we find a very small amount of apparatus, small school- 
yards and only one instructor, and it is, therefore, prac- 
tically impossible for the rural school to enter upon the 
field of vocational instruction. The most that it can 
possibly do is through the introduction of elementary 
forms of hand-work, domestic art, nature study, and the 
elements of agriculture, to develop a respect for voca- 
tion. All these subjects must be taught as incidental 
because of the absolute necessity of training the chil- 
dren in what may be called the regular or academic 
subjects, such training being designed to give them the 
power to gather thought from the printed page and to 
make such computations as are necessary in the every- 
day affairs of hfe. Of these things the rural school 
should give to every child a very definite possession. 

' Michigan State Com. on Ind. and Agr. Education, Report. Lansing, 
1910, pp. 2S-29. 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 299 

If the rural school does its elementary work well it may 
have served its purpose, but it cannot and will not fully 
meet the needs of the rural population." 

Another matter which calls for serious consideration 
in organizing the instructional work of rural schools is 
how to make provision for some training for those 
young men, more advanced in years, who are early with- 
drawn from the schools to work on the farms. The es- 
tablishment of free rural high schools for all will do much, 
of itself, toward solving this difficulty. There will still 
be found necessary, however, short courses for winter 
months, if not, also, night courses for such boys and 
young men. The one-room, one-teacher school cannot 
be expected to provide for this; but the consoHdated 
schools, with the central high school for each group, -could 
find a way to make provision for this very important 
class who are now to be found continuously out of school. 

7. Town and City Organization 

With the schools of the towns and cities the situa- 
tion in some respects is much better. They are better 
equipped materially and the organization for purposes 
of instruction is more complete. The teachers are usu- 
ally better prepared and the number employed is rea- 
sonably adequate. Frequently, however, there seems to 
be great waste in the supervisory forces. In many cases 
the men employed are not properly trained. They do 
not know how to go about the real work of supervision. 
In other cases they are kept too busy with mechanical 
or clerical duties, or with class teaching, to be able to 
devote any time to the essential work of the office. 

In spite of such limitations the city school systems 
have made good progress in the organization of the 
materials of education. In their elementary and high 



300 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

schools may usually be found a very broad and com- 
plete representation of subjects for study and various 
other exercises for school training, including music, 
drawing, and art work, physical education, the manual 
arts and household arts, and economics. The one thing 
lacking in the most marked degree is provision for train- 
ing in real vocational lines. In order to supply this de- 
ficiency successfully it will probably be necessary to re- 
construct the organization of the programme and the 
consequent distribution of pupils on some such basis as 
the six-four-four plan, 

8. The Problem as It Appears in Colleges and 
Universities 

In the case of colleges and universities may be noted 
a lack of differentiation between the two rather distinct 
functions which these institutions clearly represent in 
the field of education — training for professional service 
and training for research work on the frontiers of a par- 
ticular department of learning. The one calls for strong 
teaching abiUty on the part of the instructor and for a 
certain segregated organization of those representing and 
imbibing in common the ideals of the profession which 
they would pursue. The other requires absolute fealty 
to a given, circumscribed field of learning, with all the 
equipment and scholarly traits of the speciaHst. It 
seems, evident in these two cases that the organization 
of materials should differ somewhat even as the aim and 
the method of approach should differ. Further, there 
should be somewhere in the first group, or perhaps de- 
tached as a third line, a type of instructors and an organi- 
zation of materials prepared to tone up and lead forward 
those who have passed from the university into the field 
of Hfe's activities. By some such means there might be 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 301 

carried to them new knowledge and fresh inspiration 
from the work going on at the frontiers of the learning 
process. 

Certain it is that in these more advanced courses of 
training the curricula should be planned somewhat def- 
initely. They should lead either to the acquisition of 
professional training sufhcient to prepare the individual 
most effectively for civic usefulness and social service 
in his chosen line or to the field of research work. 
Under the former group should come the lawyer, the 
surgeon, the engineer, the agriculturist, the educator, 
the journalist, the expert in various business depart- 
ments; under the latter, government experts studying 
new problems afield, and university professors working 
in libraries and laboratories and also afield, in all the 
various departments of human interests and human 
needs that are open to such betterment as the discovery 
of new knowledge, new principles, or new combinations 
of physical forces may bring. 

9. Requirements in the Case of Defectives 

The organization for the training of defectives pre- 
sents a special field, requires a treatment pathological 
rather than normal. There are those morally defective 
to be trained to habits of right Hving and right social 
attitudes. Experience seems to show that training to 
some useful service more in the order of trades furnishes 
the best basis for the inculcation of sound principles and 
the formation of such habits as are calculated to restore 
this unsocial element. 

The physically defective who require a special train- 
ing are chiefly those who are deaf, blind, or feeble-minded. 
For each of these classes, in order to render them capable 
of caring for themselves, even partially, there is neces- 



302 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

sary that form of education which shall most nearly- 
overcome or furnish a substitute for that which is lack- 
ing. Such training requires the segregation of these 
classes in schools specially equipped and with teachers 
specially trained and pecuHarly fitted for doing this 
work. 

10. Programme of the Elementary School 

But what as to the content of the programme of 
studies? What materials should be drawn from nature 
and what from history, and in what order? In the ele- 
mentary school the basis for training in the school arts 
should come, first of all, from local historical materials, 
such as home life and customs; industries, with some- 
thing of primitive types to aid in developing a historical 
perspective; local institutions and the organization of 
society for purposes of government and for pubHc ser- 
vice. Then there should be much drawn from litera- 
ture, including biographies, and from history told in 
story form or as very simple narrative. Art should 
also contribute its historical side. 

Next there should be liberal studies from nature, be- 
ginning, perhaps, with familiar animals and plants, to- 
gether with other and general aspects of nature. Along 
with the development of the expressional arts, especial 
care should be taken in the training of the observational 
powers and the formation of habits of accuracy in re- 
cording or organizing results of observations. 

II. Programme of the High School 

As this work advances into the high-school grades its 
scope should gradually enlarge and the treatment in- 
tensify. Laboratory accessories should come more and 
more into use in the nature work; while, on the histori- 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 303 

cal side, libraries, cabinets, charts, and maps should be- 
come important features as the work progresses. Foreign 
language should be introduced, especially for those look- 
ing to either professional careers or to advanced study 
and research. In the former cases modern language, or 
mathematics, or drawing and art work, or shop work 
should equip the individual with whatever accessory arts 
may be prerequisites to entering upon a particular pro- 
fession. In the latter, similar training should be had, 
after thoughtful determination, in order to fit one for 
the various lines of research which a given field may 
seem to demand. 

12. The Weakness of the Old Order 

The above characterization of the content of the pro- 
gramme appHes chiefly to the standard recognized ac- 
tivities of the schools as they are now organized. We 
have already laid down the principle that education, 
through the public schools as a means, is for the purpose 
of training individuals for social efficiency and social 
betterment. In order to accomplish this aim the school 
should instruct children and youth (a) in the formation 
of right habits; (b) in acquiring the skill necessary for 
rendering some service needed by society and essential 
to the permanent well-being and efficiency of the indi- 
vidual; (c) in the processes and experiences necessary 
for the cultivation of the mind both in the acquisition 
of useful knowledge and in the ability to think clearly; 
(d) in estabHshing the habit and tendency to right con- 
duct; (e) in the principles of good citizenship. 

There is a generally prevalent feeling among educa- 
tional people, and, indeed, among thoughtful people of all 
classes, that in order to attain these ends we are greatly 
in need of a reorganization of the materials of education 



304 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

as usually expressed in the programme of studies of the 
elementary and secondary schools. Probably no phrase 
comes nearer to expressing what is generally felt to be 
lacking than that a motive is needed. We try to do 
too much in the abstract. We conjure up materials 
from any and all sources, materials entirely unrelated 
in any organic sense to the lives of children and youth, 
in order to train in the school arts. Most of the content 
material presented is from books, without much thought 
as to its motivation or as to whether or not the pupils 
have any basis for interpreting it, or, in other words, 
are able to assimilate it in such a way as really to con- 
tribute anything toward the real process of informing 
their minds. Various ways and means of supplying 
what is thus felt to be lacking have been tried. Out of 
all the resulting experiences thus far seems to come the 
evidence that, where pupils are provided with something 
to do that definitely relates itself to the every-day in- 
terests of Hfe, motive for their academic work is not 
lacking. Especially is this true where the teachers of 
these academic subjects present them in such a way as 
to indicate their relationship to human accomplishments 
along lines of action similar to those in which the pupils 
are engaged. 

All of this is in accord with the theory of psycholo- 
gists as appKed to the learning process. ''No experi- 
ence is of importance unless it is organized," says Royce, 
in his ''Outlines of Psychology." ^ But experiences, to 
be organized, need to be connected in some orderly 
manner or by means of common threads of interest; 
and the process of such organization depends, in child- 
hood and youth, chiefly on action as a basis. This 
same general idea is pretty definitely expressed by 

^ Royce, Josiah, "Outlines of Psychology," p. 351. 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 305 

Dewey in his ''Moral Principles in Education,"^ in a 
discussion of the manner in which the power of judg- 
ment is cultivated. ''Acquiring information," he says, 
"can never develop the power of judgment. . . . The 
child cannot get power of judgment excepting as he is 
continually exercised in forming and testing judgments. 
He must have an opportunity to select for himself, and 
to attempt to put his selections into execution, that he 
may submit them to the final test, that of action." 

Again the same writer, in discussing the elementary 
curriculum, expresses the need of definite lines of action 
in a still more emphatic way when he says:^ "That the 
elementary curriculum is overloaded is a common com- 
plaint. The only alternative to a reactionary return to 
the educational traditions of the past lies in working 
out the intellectual possibilities resident in the various 
arts, crafts, and occupations, and reorganizing the cur- 
riculum accordingly. Here, more than elsewhere, are 
found the means by which the blind and routine experi- 
ence of the race may be transformed into illuminated 
and emancipated experiment." 

The fine discriminations in motor activities which 
result from the acquisition of skill in doing are first 
mental before they become automatic and habitual. It 
is here, doubtless, that are gained some of the most im- 
portant points in the process of organizing our experi- 
ences into those varied but closely related elements 
which we have in mind when we refer to our knowledge 
in regard to any of the ordinary relations in life, whether 
natural or institutional. Thorndike^ thus explains this 

^ Dewey, John, "Moral Principles in Education," Riverside Educa- 
tional Monograph, p. 55. 
2 Dewey, John, "How to Think," p. 169. 
' Thomdike, E. L,, "Elements of Psychology," p. 300. 



306 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

process of the cultivation of skill through motor activ- 
ity: "A skilled movement may commonly be divided 
into the coarser adjustments with which it starts and 
the finer adjustments which come into play in response 
to the guiding sensations. . . . Motor skill is thus by 
no means a matter of delicacy of movement alone. It 
implies also the capacity to receive and attend to the 
fine differences in sensations which are the guides to the 
finer adjustments, and, most important of all, the capac- 
ity to make connections between sensations and move- 
ments, to eliminate the unnecessary and undesirable 
movements." 

13. The Element Most Needed Is an Industrial 
" Core " 

The trouble, in other words, with the school curricu- 
lum is not so much that it is overloaded, as Dewey would 
express it, as that there is lacking a sufficiently constant 
and extensive basis for the organization, in connection 
with motor processes, of the fundamental experiences 
undertaken to be set up in the minds of children and 
youth from lessons and problems that are only abstrac- 
tions, without any basic, concrete relation in experience. 
And it is just this lack which an industrial core or basis 
to all this period of training would supply. 

All educational experience thus far tends to corrobo- 
rate this point of view, and that, too, with emphasis. 
Witness the results obtained in the education of the 
negro at Hampton and Tuskegee; or by the introduc- 
tion of manual arts into city high schools and agricul- 
ture into rural high schools; or by the George, Jr., Re- 
public and the various industrial schools for boys and 
girls who have started wrong or sought to evade the les- 
sons of the strictly academic schools. It is but natural 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 307 

that the query often arises: Why not make this work 
prophylactic instead of corrective? 

Primarily, the purpose of the introduction of this in- 
dustrial work should be educational; but it need be 
none the less practical on that account. And, when we 
come to the various "turnout" points in the process 
of education, there might well be an intensification of 
the industrial or ''trade" aspect of this training. In 
this respect Superintendent Wirt has set up an excel- 
lent example in the schools at Gary, Ind. Under en- 
tirely different conditions a similar situation is being 
evolved in many of our larger cities. The Los Angeles 
schools are a fine illustration. The organization of 
various types of prevocational classes and schools is 
illustrative of the same movement. 



14. Specialization and Adjustability 

Aside from the character of the industrial work to be 
offered there can be little room for any suggestion, even, 
of speciaHzation before about the middle of the high- 
school period. Here the inclinations, capabilities, and 
limitations of the individual pupil should have become 
sufficiently apparent to make possible a pretty definite 
choice of the fine of work to be pursued and empha- 
sized in the further training which may seem practicable 
or desirable, both from the point of view of the individ- 
ual and that of society. In making this choice, how- 
ever, Kttle if anything else should weigh other than the 
physical, mental, and moral capabilities of the indi- 
vidual. 

Here, again, we are confronted by the problem of wisely 
differentiating the materials of education, as represented 
in the curriculum, so as to offer lines of training to 



308 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

correspond to the differentiations among pupils and 
also in our social conditions and needs. It seems evi- 
dent enough, in spite of the contentions of those who 
still insist that the traditional curriculum is best, that 
there must be this adjustment of materials to the vary- 
ing educational needs of the individual and society. 
For while it is true that the particular applications of 
knowledge and skill to the affairs of life to-day may give 
place in the next generation to an entirely different 
situation, calling for new knowledge and new skill, yet 
the matter of interest as a motive, a vitaHzing principle 
in the conventionalized processes of the school, calls for 
this definite relationship to the things that now are. 

This puts a special emphasis upon the necessity of 
adjustabihty on the part of the individual. Not the 
least of the problems of modern education is that of 
finding the way by which to enable the individual to 
project himself through the entire active period of Hfe 
without the breakdown that is likely to come with in- 
ability to adjust readily to the changing conditions of 
life. As we seek to promote health, and thereby to 
lengthen a man's expectancy, we must also provide for 
this other contingency of adjustabihty in service, else 
it were better not to extend the Hfe period. The prob- 
lem seems to point definitely to the need of those ele- 
ments in the training of the school which will develop 
most freely the power of initiative, constructive power, 
ideals. 

It seems probable that, when the final sifting and 
weighing of the values in the curriculum are accom- 
phshed, if such a consummation is possible, there may 
remain elements which all alike must have, in order to 
be properly prepared for needed adjustments. If such 
there be. then these will become the constant elements 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 309 

of all our curricula. All other types of material for the 
training of the schools will then need to be arranged, 
sequentially and in accordance with time requirements, 
either in separate and definite- curricula or in larger, 
variable groups, from which the individual may elect 
according to the purposes and needs of his prospective 
career in Hfe. It is interesting to note the progress 
that is being made in experiments for determining 
somewhat definitely the time factor in covering the tra- 
ditional courses of the elementary programme. Cer- 
tainly there is great need for the estabHshment of a 
rehable time measure of the pupils' effort in order to 
achieve the purposes of the teaching and exercises here 
set up. This is not to mean that we should shorten 
the period preceding the university training of an indi- 
vidual, but that we may be able to bring him to it 
better informed and more skilful. 

15. Knowledge Lacking of Educational Values 

There is also much that remains to be demonstrated, 
as regards the actual values inherent in the different 
subjects taught, expressed in terms of actual results per- 
ceivable in the education of the individual. Just at 
present there are Hues of work about which pretty good 
guesses may be made. In other directions varied and 
conflicting opinions are rife. Perhaps no greater single 
service could be rendered to education at this stage than 
to make it possible to state, with some degree of defi- 
niteness, the educational values of the chief groups of 
materials now demanding attention in the schools. 



310 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 



1 6. The Demand Is for Greater Flexibility of the 
Curriculum 

In his report on the educational aspects of the public- 
school system of New York City/ referring to the 
curriculum of the elementary schools, Dr. Frank M. 
McMurry calls attention to the need of greater flexi- 
bihty. This view is corroborated by Dr. Paul H. 
Hanus in discussing editorially the ''Report as a Whole.'' 
Such an expression, and from such sources, should ex- 
ercise a profound influence on the future development 
of the elementary-school programme. The feeling is 
altogether too common that effective administration calls 
for absolute uniformity in the curricula for all schools 
of a system, regardless of local conditions. 

In the programme of the high school we have recourse 
to wide election in order to meet this situation. In 
some instances, as in Los Angeles, Cal., the flexibihty 
is further increased by differentiating the high schools. 
Pupils desiring to emphasize some particular element in 
their high-school education select the high school which 
stresses this line of work. This makes the high school 
somewhat less readily accessible to the pupil; but it 
enables a particular school to go further in a certain 
line than where the schools are all equally composite, 
as in Saint Louis. It is also a more economical way 
when it comes to the expensive equipment needed for 
the various technical courses. 

Such a plan of differentiation could hardly be operated 
so readily in elementary schools. But certainly it is 

1 Report of Committee on School Inquiry on Educational Aspects of 
the Public School System, part II, "Elementary Schools," Frank 
M. McMurry. City of New York, igii-12. 



THE CURRICULA OF THE SCHOOLS 311 

practicable to allow considerable latitude in stressing 
certain elements in the general programme, in changing 
the actual materials used as well as the presentation, so 
as to meet peculiar social needs and conditions in dif- 
ferent parts of a large system. Then there is also op- 
portunity in such a plan for a larger degree of initiative 
on the part of both teachers and principal. 

17. The Principle of Economy Involved 

This brings us to the consideration, finally, of the 
principle of economy involved in constructing the cur- 
ricula of our schools. Although the mass of materials 
seemingly requiring attention in any complete scheme 
for the training of youth has increased rapidly in volume 
during the past quarter of a century, yet no very suc- 
cessful attempt has as yet been made by the schools 
generally to reorganize this mass of materials into such 
simple unities as shall bring it within the scope of the 
period of training available to the average pupil. 

In a similar sense the- demand for a more highly spe- 
ciahzed and varied abihty in the teaching force is notice- 
able, with a corresponding increase in the equipment 
called for. All these changes involve a heavy increase 
in the educational budget. If that pubhc sentiment 
which ever stands behind the taxing powers of our gov- 
ernment is to acquiesce in all this growth in cost it will 
only be by making apparent the relative importance, the 
actual civic and industrial need, of what the schools pro- 
pose to do. But more important than financial econ- 
omy, essential as this may be, is that economy of time 
to be sought, through a better arrangement of sequences, 
in order to prepare the individual, without loss, for effi- 
cient service. 

All this goes to demonstrate the fact that all friends 



312 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

of true educational progress are bound to count care- 
fully the various elements of cost involved and to elim- 
inate every wasteful factor in the administration of in- 
struction. In other words, it is the business of those 
of us who are specialists in this field of education to see 
to it that society actually gets from the schools, in a 
genuinely economic sense, those values for which pubHc 
education is instituted and maintained. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE TEACHER 

Here, after seventeen chapters, we approach the heart 
of the whole matter. Imagine a Hne at which are to be 
found, on the one side, all those who are to be taught; 
on the other side, all those who are to teach. Here are 
to be brought, in proper order, all materials of educa- 
tion. The personality of the teacher, en rapport with 
that of the child, produces the atmosphere in which this 
material is to be contemplated, mentally digested and 
assimilated, in the processes of education. All that has 
preceded exists solely that this may be possible, and that 
it may be done most economically, most effectively, as 
concerns the highest welfare of the individual and of the 
social group. 

I. The Teacher Should Volunteer the Service 

And who and what should the teacher be? Society 
has assumed at least partial responsibiHty for the train- 
ing of those who are to teach, and should do so quite as 
completely as soldiers are trained for the business of 
war. Society also undertakes the selection of those who 
are to teach, including all the raw recruits who seek to 
enhst in the work without special preparation. The 
supervising agencies of the schools are supposed to take 
care of the teachers' progressive training in service. 
But, as for the attitude of all those who enter the ser- 
vice, they should be volunteers. Economic compulsion 

313 



314 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

undoubtedly causes many to seek positions as teachers. 
With these it is largely only a temporary ''shift." The 
exceptional cases may belong in one of two classes : those 
who stay in the work because they lack the courage and 
force to voluntarily get out and those who cultivate a 
real liking for the work and so deliberately choose to 
remain. 

2. The Typical Teacher Characterized 

It is safe to say that the vast majority of those who 
have taught for three or more years have chosen the 
work of the teacher with some deliberation and as a 
matter of preference, either before entering upon it or as 
a result of experience. But, when we consider the short- 
ness of the average life^ of the teacher, the real number 
who have deliberately chosen to teach becomes rela- 
tively very small. ''The typical American male public- 
school teacher," says Coffman, speaking in terms of 
medians, "is twenty-nine years of age, having begun 
teaching when he was almost twenty years of age, after 
he had received but three or four years of training be- 
yond the elementary school. In the nine years elapsing 
between the age he began teaching and his present age 
he has had seven years of experience, and his salary at 
the present time is $489 a year. Both of his parents 
were living when he entered teaching and both spoke 
the English language. They had an annual income 
from their farm of $700, which they were compelled 
to use to support themselves and their four or five 
children." 

* CofTman has shown that 77+ per cent of rural teachers, 44+ per cent 
of town, 44.65 per cent in cities of 8,000 and over, and 28.6 per cent in 
cities of 100,000 and over teach five years or less. — (L. D. Coilman, 
"The Social Composition of the Teaching Populations," Teachers Col- 
lege, Columbia University, Contribution to Education, 1911.) 



THE TEACHER 315 

Similarly, the same writer characterizes the female 
teacher as follows: "The typical American female 
teacher is twenty-four years of age, having entered 
teaching in the early part of her nineteenth year when 
she had received but four years training beyond the 
elementary schools. Her salary at her present age is 
$485 a year. She is native born of native-born parents, 
both of whom speak the English language. When she 
entered teaching both of her parents were living and 
had an annual income of approximately $800, which 
they were compelled to use to support themselves and 
their four or five children. The young woman early 
found the pressure, both real and anticipated, to earn 
her own way very heavy. As teaching was regarded as 
a highly respectable calling, and as the transfer from 
the schoolroom as a student to it as a teacher was but 
a step, she decided upon teaching." 

Here we have a fairly correct picture of the situation — 
of the teacher in real life. What can be expected of our 
schools under such conditions? Certainly, experience 
has long since shown us that we get much more and bet- 
ter by way of results than we should naturally expect. 
But in such general characterizations we must remem- 
ber that there is always a goodly list above median 
who are able to project themselves, through others of 
inferior qualities, into a much wider field of influence 
than that represented by mere numbers. It is "the 
little leaven," after all, that is able to make us socially 
optimistic and render our schools reasonably efficient 
in spite of the general showing presented in terms of 
preparation by our teaching force. Nevertheless, it is 
undoubtedly true that one of our first cares should be 
to raise these standards to a much higher average level. 



316 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 



3. Personality in Teaching 

But no amount of training in scholarship or profes- 
sionally can make amends for the lack of certain per- 
sonal qualities essential to successful teaching. Here 
the matter of selection is a far more difficult problem 
than in matters of training. The latter may be deter- 
mined somewhat formally by means of the individual's 
student record and by examinations. The only effec- 
tively formal way to determine a successful personality 
is by observing the actual teaching work of the indi- 
vidual teacher and gauging the achievement in terms of 
such standards as are available for the subjects taught. 
It is in this aspect of the work that our methods are 
most crude and faulty. Outside of some few city sys- 
tems there is no adequate method of checking and re- 
cording the capabilities of those who teach in terms of 
their personal qualities. 

Every call that comes from teachers' agencies or city 
superintendents seeking information concerning candi- 
dates asks particularly about the '^ personality" of the 
teacher. Now, what is this thing about which all em- 
ployers desire rehable information? And how is one to 
know the answer? If one knows the individual in ques- 
tion well and has seen him at work, he may venture to 
state a few facts about those personal quahties which 
go to make up personality; otherwise one's opinion must 
be largely a guess. And even at best it is not always 
easy to state facts, much as the necessity of the case 
may require the plain truth about a candidate for a 
given teaching position. 

By personality we mean what is included in character 
and something more. One may possess an excellent 



THE TEACHER 317 

character and yet fail as a teacher. There may be lack- 
ing assurance, directive power, convincing qualities of 
speech and action, which play an important part in per- 
sonal control of others or in commanding their respect. 
One's personal appearance is a partial index of this 
quality. Voice, cleanliness, taste in dress, facial habit, 
grace of movement or lack of it, all aid one in judging 
of the personaHty of another. Hence it follows that one 
may develop or modify his own personality. For ner- 
vousness, composure may be cultivated; for harshness of 
voice, soft and musical notes; for brusqueness, affabil- 
ity; for careless dress, tastefulness; for uncleanly hab- 
its, scrupulous neatness. It is not quite correct to think 
of personality as being, hke the leopard's spots, inevi- 
tably fixed. But for him who thus despairs there is apt 
to be lacking that central factor in personality — force of 
will. Think of what could be done in the case of a Helen 
Keller; of a Demosthenes overcoming an impediment 
of speech to go down in history as a world-renowned 
orator; of the Elmira experiment with the twelve worst 
criminals. Only sheer lack of will need cause any one 
to despair. Wise coaching on the part of a supervisor 
is capable of producing marvellous results in cases which 
otherwise might be hopeless. 

4. The Teacher's Ethics Concerning Appointments 

In the matter of appointments there seems to be a 
woful state of things among teachers generally. Fear 
of failure to secure any appointment often leads to what 
appears to be a serious laxity in the average teacher's 
code of ethics. Possibly, when the teacher's tenure be- 
comes less precarious, less subject to personal or neigh- 
borhood whims, on the one hand, or a mistaken estimate 



318 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

of values in positions, on the other, this state of things 
may subside. As things now are, the moral effect on 
the profession is deplorable. No teacher should accept 
an appointment merely to secure him against final fail- 
ure to obtain one. One's attitude should be that of 
determining a finaHty. There should be a willingness 
to ''bide the consequences" when one accepts or de- 
clines an appointment to teach; and, indeed, the cases 
are rare, if one has the will, where such an attitude will 
not most surely win success in the long run. Occa- 
sionally, unexpected and therefore unsought openings 
come which so evidently mark a turning-point in one's 
professional career as to call for a reconsideration and 
request for honorable release. To such a request, fairly 
and rightly presented, few school boards will offer a 
denial. It is the heartless disregard of contracts for 
the sake of a few dollars more, or a little easier or 
more notable position, that has exasperated school 
boards and school superintendents almost beyond en- 
durance. Such teachers have simply never learned real 
values; they do not know how to estimate the cost 
of such an act. 

5. Professional Attitude of the Teacher 

This consideration brings before us the larger ques- 
tion of the professional attitude of the teacher. Such 
a relation on the part of the individual teacher appears 
with reference to (i) the administrative organization of 
the schools; (2) the individual members of the teaching 
force of which he is one; (3) the school as a whole in 
its larger social aspects; and (4) various larger educa- 
tional interests. The school is an organization in which 
several individuals, the number varying with the popu- 
lation included in the unit of control which the school is 



THE TEACHER 319 

to serve, are colaborers toward a common end and pur- 
pose. Such a situation always calls for that spirit of 
co-operation which we sometimes express as esprit de 
corps, *' team-work." In other words, to follow the 
phraseology of athletics, each one must play his part in 
the game not only as an individual but as part of the 
team and therefore at the call of the captain. In the 
best sense this is not subordination, it is perfect co- 
ordination; and in teaching as well as in athletics he 
*' plays the game best" who fully and heartily recog- 
nizes this fact. 

This spirit of the individual, properly adjusted in a 
great social service, shows itself in the matter of ap- 
pointments and contracts to which reference has already 
been made. It appears also in the teacher's attitude 
toward the superintendent and all supervising officers. 
It manifests itself in the spirit with which all rules 
are observed, all suggestions heeded, all advice and 
counsel received and appropriated. It becomes evident 
also in the promptness, fulness, and accuracy of reports; 
in attendance upon and participation in all meetings of 
special groups or of the entire teaching body; in a will- 
ingness to share the burden of preparation for discus- 
sions or in carrying on investigations relative to the 
more difficult problems of the school; in the way in 
which any emergency call is received, whether in case 
of illness or absence of a fellow teacher, or because of 
some unforeseen excess of work to be distributed, or in 
the face of some accident or grave danger. 

Not less vital and important is that professional atti- 
tude which manifests itself in the teacher's relationship 
to the other members of the corps as well as of the 
profession at large. The true spirit shows forth in a 
genuine comradeship. Each individual has a jealous 



320 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

care for the professional reputation, the personal well- 
being of every member of the group. If one is in any 
dififi-culty, sympathy is apparent from each of the others. 
Does another achieve something of note, receive some 
special honor or recognition, it is counted as so much 
gain for all. The fair-minded teacher permits no evil 
gossip, in his presence, concerning any other member or 
official of the corps. A right professional attitude is 
inimical to covetousness, to jealousy, to unfair play. It 
never expresses itself in an effort to ''protect" local or 
State teachers against fair competition by outsiders. 

Entirely aside from the personal responsibilities of 
the teacher in instructing the pupils assigned to his 
care, there are certain general interests connected with 
the general social life of the school in which all teachers 
are called to share. This relation is most marked in a 
large school unit or centre. To ignore or neglect this 
aspect of the teacher's work, without good cause, is a 
serious breach of professional obligation. The indi- 
vidual who enters into contract to teach in a certain 
capacity, without having carefully considered and ac- 
cepted this and all other professional obligations as 
essential to the success of his work individually and of 
the school as a whole, will probably not proceed very 
far without some unhappy experiences. 

Then, too, there are interests involving professional 
spirit and loyalty l3ang entirely outside of the particu- 
lar school in which one is called to instruct. It is one 
of the peculiar characteristics of democratic institutions 
that each individual must devote some time and trouble 
to matters of general public concern without pay. In 
this respect the teacher is not exempt; and especially 
does the obligation lie to lend a hand in all honorable 
and unselfish plans for the betterment of schools and 



THE TEACHER 321 

for general professional uplift. This does not imply 
that there should be an attitude of supine acquiescence, 
as by compulsion, in doing what is a downright wrong 
or imposition. The individual always has a right to 
be heard; but when full and free discussion has been 
had and a decision reached the individual should strive 
to make the decision of the majority his own in so far 
as immediate action is concerned. 

6. The Teacher's Rights and Privileges 

No such effective co-operation as is impHed in the 
foregoing discussion of the teacher's professional atti- 
tude will be possible without due recognition, on the 
part of all in authority and all coworkers, of the rights 
and privileges of the teacher. It has been seen to be 
the province of society to train and select teachers. No 
matter what may have been the teacher's antecedents, 
this training and selection should be sufficient guarantee 
of the teacher's right to respectful treatment as a mem- 
ber of society. If there remain any real personal causes 
for even an approach toward social ostracism, then so- 
ciety, and not the teacher, is culpable. The teacher, 
once chosen and appointed, is entitled to consideration 
commensurate with the high calling of those who are 
to be the intimate guides and instructors of the young. 
Each teacher owes it to himself and, indeed, to his 
calling to keep in touch with the normal social life 
about him. The allotment of work should be such as 
to make readily possible his recognition and acceptance 
of this relation which should be cherished as at once a 
privilege and an obligation. 

There are also the professional rights of the individual 
teacher. He is entitled to a fair and impartial rating 
by those who supervise his work; to advancement and 



322 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

recognition on merit for service rendered and for abil- 
ity displayed. No extraneous "influence" should have 
weight here. The duties assigned should leave the 
individual a fair chance for participation in all the 
privileges of his profession proportionately with those 
with whom he works. Speaking abstractly, the individ- 
ual teacher has a right to expect those opportunities 
necessary for and essential to his professional improve- 
ment that lie outside of his immediate personal work in 
the school. Neither the board nor the supervisor can 
rightfully neglect making provision for such participa- 
tion in the recognized means of training in service. 

Most vitally important of all are the personal rights 
of the teacher — the right to compensation adequate to 
enable him to meet all his obligations, family, social, 
professional; the right to a fair and equitable allotment 
of hours; to suitable room and equipment; to the sym- 
pathy and respect of all coworkers, whether of equal 
rank or otherwise, in the distribution of the tasks of 
the school; to opportunity for such rest and recreation 
as the strenuous nerve strain of the teacher's work re- 
quires. How else can the spirit of the teacher be free, 
the mind clear and alert, the body a sure support, in 
vital energy, for the duties of the schoolroom? 

7. The Teacher's Duty to Self 

The teacher's duty to himself is akin to his personal 
rights in effect. Of what consequence will all these 
other things be — how will leisure or compensation or 
sympathy profit the individual who is profligate of self 
and all material resources; who neglects the oppor- 
tunity for physical recuperation; who drains his vital- 
ity to the dregs in a vain effort to do the impossible 
or in a lazy dread of unaccustomed physical exertion? 



THE TEACHER 323 

Equally fatal would be the neglect of his mental life 
and growth, of that wider reading and experience which 
will give him a broader outlook on life. The teacher who 
grows old and worn-out before his time is not he who 
numbers the most years of existence or of service. It 
is the one who settles helplessly into the routine of 
daily tasks, content to permit them to absorb his whole 
time, to become the sum total of his entire round of 
experiences. To such a one Hfe is Kttle, if any, longer 
than the time it takes to acquire a set of habits asso- 
ciated about a few closely related central experiences. 

The work of the teacher calls for the man at his best 
— the man who is alive, growing, enthusiastic, adjusting 
himself daily to the changing demands of his task. It 
is the final purpose of the administration of education 
to place in the hands of such persons the instruction of 
all those who should be taught. That type of admin- 
istration of instruction which undertakes to impose 
fixed methods upon the teacher is fatal. It nullifies at 
one stroke all that the entire fabric of organization out- 
side the teacher's domain was intended to accomplish 
— that of aiding him in the independent, untrammelled 
occupation of his domain. 

8. Preparation Which the Service Demands 

The school is that convention of society in which it 
is undertaken to set up a series of experiences, selected 
and condensed as compared with individual Hfe experi- 
ences, in order that the young may come thus prema- 
turely into possession of the essence of those things 
which represent the best of what the race has achieved 
up to the present time. At the very best the task is a 
stupendous one, made more so by each passing year. 
The teacher is the artist,, the inspiration, the vitalizing 



324 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

medium in the process. His task is not, as some sup- 
pose, to measure off lessons by the page or exercises 
by the hour until the years of preparation of childhood 
and youth have been lived through. His is a far more 
complex problem of service. He is constantly experi- 
menting not with inert matter but with life — with hu- 
man life both in its physical and mental aspects. He 
constantly seeks the material, the exercise, the experi- 
ence which is to set up in the bodies and minds of 
individuals experiences that correspond, in their trend, 
to those fundamental conventions which represent the 
legacy of all past generations to those of the present 
and future; individuals who, in turn, are to bear forward 
the trophy for another lap in life's endless relay. 

Viewed in such a light, what preparation, befitting 
such a task, should the teacher seek for himself? Shall 
it be just barely enough to pass the lenient require- 
ments of certificating laws made obsolescent by the 
swift march of progress? Or shall it be the very most 
and best that his effort can win, with plans for an- 
nual instalments of increase sufficient to keep a little 
ahead of the best educational practice? Certainly, if 
one is sincere with himself and with his calling, nothing 
short of the latter will do. Only the time-server will 
be content to drift along, resorting to all sorts of sub- 
stitutions for professional merit in order to keep himself 
employed. 

But when it comes to a speciaKzed choice in the field 
of teaching a different problem is presented. Here one 
must study his or her own tastes and aptitudes with 
the purpose not only of avoiding that which is distaste- 
ful but also of finding that to do which shall be a per- 
ennial joy in the doing. For the price of success in the 
teacher's field is inexorably heavy, and serious will be 



THE TEACHER 325 

the handicap where real love for the work is lacking. 
It is doubtless true that there will be found differences 
in the present promise of various fields of teaching as 
far as compensation is concerned. Public sentiment is 
very fickle in such matters. Nevertheless, there is a 
fine success to be won in any field. Is the teacher lured 
by the present glamour of some recent development in 
education calling for a special preparation and promis- 
ing a larger reward? Let him beware lest he undertake 
a task of which he may soon grow weary. Let him not 
disregard the real bases of value in that which he is to 
take up deliberately as his life's task. 

In making such a selection from the larger field one 
should consider the possibilities of promotion and the 
initial preparation which such promotion will require. 
As fife's responsibihties increase with years — for such is 
the normal experience of mankind — there will come also 
the need of increase in one's income. Fortunate, indeed, 
is that person who always, when opportunity presents 
itself for advancement in a chosen career, finds himself 
ready to take advantage of it. 



CHAPTER XIX 
CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTIONS 

I. The Problem Stated 

No other problem in the field of educational adminis- 
tration that is related directly to instruction presents so 
many stubborn difficulties as does the problem of classi- 
fication and promotions throughout the various stages 
of the educative process. This is undoubtedly due to 
our system of mass education, made necessary by reason 
of our attempt to make free public instruction universal. 
Nor is there any way of escape, except through a process 
of poHtical and social reversion. Overwhelmed as we 
are in our efforts to provide facilities for all, even en 
masse, how utterly hopeless and inconceivable becomes 
any thought of a system of individual instruction. 
And, indeed, it is not likely that any such system would 
prove superior to the present simultaneous or class sys- 
tem of instruction. On the contrary, the latter method 
probably has more in its favor than would equal the 
sum of all its disadvantages. Any teacher who has 
gone from the tutoring of a single student to the enthu- 
siasm of numbers and the interchange of thought of 
class teaching is readily prepared to appreciate the ad- 
vantages of class work. 

2. The Theory of Classification 

In our educational progress we seem to have been a 
little slow in finding a satisfactory basis for classifying 

326 



CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTIONS 327 

groups of individuals together for purposes of instruc- 
tion. However, when we consider the newness of it all, 
the movement no longer strikes us as being so very 
tardy. The general theory is that there are minds 
which move at an average or median rate, usually des- 
ignated as normal and constituting a majority of chil- 
dren or youth of a given age or stage of development. 
Below these are subnormal types, and above are super- 
normals. The aim in classification should be to keep 
the normals moving regularly forward together, while 
the subnormals are set out for special treatment and the 
supernormals moved ahead with a rapidity commen- 
surate with the superior facility with which they are able 
to master the work of a given period. 

3. Frequent and Careful Revision Necessary 

This theory is a very general one and carries with 
it several possibilities of error in interpretation or appli- 
cation. In the first place, some of the factors causing 
these differences are Hkely to be eliminated, as time 
goes on, by the natural processes of individual physical 
and mental development. Thus, one who was sub- 
normal last year may be a good normal this year. In 
the second place, the tests for normal or other condi- 
tion may be wrong in character or imperfectly applied. 
In either emergency, the results will be misleading and 
liable to end in a loss for the individual. This means, 
simply, that classifications should be subject to frequent 
and careful revision. 

4. Individual Work and Correct Measure of 
Achievement 

It implies also that there will need to be always indi- 
vidual work on the part not only of the teacher of the 



328 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

special class but also a modicum of individual work by 
the teacher of normals. Such treatment of the prob- 
lem calls for constant alertness on the part of the teacher 
in charge as well as of the immediate supervisor of the 
work. It requires, moreover, a clear understanding of 
what experiences are to be set up in the minds of the 
pupils, through the processes of instruction, at a given 
stage of development and by a given subject or exer- 
cise. Only on such grounds of knowledge and insight 
can there be any intelHgent testing and judging of the 
pupil's achievement. One of the most common failings 
of our present-day methods is due to the prevaiHng 
practice, at all stages of educational work, of applying 
only quantitative or memoriter tests in the efforts to 
determine a pupil's progress. Thus far, in our attempts 
to measure achievement, too much sameness has char- 
acterized the treatment of subjects widely different. 
Think, for instance, of testing achievement in history 
study by the same question-and-answer method ap- 
plied to mathematics. How is such a method to throw 
any light on the socializing process which has been go- 
ing on, a mental process of change of which the pupil 
himself may be entirely unaware? Yet is this not the 
chief end sought in the teaching of history? Students 
in school or college are mentioned as having good 
minds but slow of expression, meaning, ordinarily, that 
they think things through and therefore gain real in- 
formation. On the other hand, the precocious indi- 
vidual talks glibly of a subject only as he remembers 
the sayings of some writer or lecturer, while he thinks 
little or not at all. The common practice would be 
to underrate the former and overrate the latter. The 
rather exceptional teacher will discover the really sig- 
nificant facts about the two and probably reverse the 



CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTIONS 329 

ranking. In high school or college, the ratings of sev- 
eral different teachers, through the device of distribut- 
ing grades, will serve as a check and balance. In the 
case of the elementary schools the supervisor of in- 
struction should be able to act as a check upon errors 
in judgment by teachers. 

5. Correct Classification Calls for Careful Study of 
Changes in Individuals 

In order to establish and preserve a good working 
classification, a very close watch needs to be kept upon 
the pupils of the first five or six grades of the elemen- 
tary school. If the basis for classification has thus been 
well looked after through these first years, there should 
be Httle trouble later on. Both teacher and supervisor 
will need to have clearly in mind such measurements 
for achievement as are available. Not until recently 
has attention been called definitely to the possibihty 
of a real scientific measure of efficiency in a given sub- 
ject. The time will doubtless soon come when no one 
will think of making promotions in our schools on any 
other basis. The children who early manifest a weak- 
ness or inability to carry the simpler exercises of the 
first few grades will call for special care. If, after due 
testing, any are found decidedly below normal in their 
mental ages they should receive special expert treat- 
ment in the school for specials. 

6. Special Care in Case of Abnormals 

Similarly, provision will also be made for those who 
show a decidedly supernormal capacity. These should 
be moved forward to the next group above as soon as 
they are found to be prepared for the work of that 
group. A careful elimination of specials, both below 



330 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

and above normal, should make it comparatively easy 
to preserve the regular classification. At the same time, 
it will always be necessary to bear in mind that not all 
who classify regularly for a given year will necessarily 
remain normal for all succeeding years. A sudden awak- 
ening of some dormant power may discover a new super- 
normal. Such awakening may come as a result of a 
cycle of development completed during a vacation and 
thus account for one of those marvels in the character 
of a dull or ordinary boy who has suddenly been trans- 
formed to a paragon of docility and aptness in the grade 
higher up. 

Then, again, some of those classed as specials in the 
subnormal group will be restored, as thoroughly com- 
petent, to their regular grade. There is always danger, 
in the case cf those classed in the deficient group, that 
this condition may be taken for granted as a perma- 
nent thing. For this reason, only specially capable 
teachers should ever be intrusted with the teaching of 
these groups. Ultimately, there should come out of the 
classes for those who were found to be laggards at least 
two groups of pupils: (i) those who are able to recover 
their grades and keep up with normal classification; (2) 
those who are permanently defective but who are ca- 
pable of taking a fair degree of mental training when 
made sufficiently concrete. For these, regular vocational 
training should be early provided. It is assumed here 
that those who might otherwise constitute a third group 
as hopelessly defective mentally should have been dis- 
covered earlier and differently cared for under direc- 
tion of the psychological clinic. 

Non-attendance at school, especially when caused by 
sickness or when accompanied by severe physical labor 
amounting to overwork, will be likely to add to the 



CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTIONS 331 

second class even from the ranks of those who started 
out fairly as normals or even stronger. These should 
have especially careful treatment in order to enable 
them to regain as much as possible of the opportuni- 
ties of which external circumstances may otherwise per- 
manently deprive them. 

Besides the special classes already referred to, there 
will or should be classes for tuberculars with suitable 
open-air conditions, classes for those of defective hear- 
ing, for the blind, and for cripples. These classes will 
all require teachers especially quahfied to deal with the 
peculiar difficulties in instruction which such cases pre- 
sent. 

7. Periods of Promotion as Affecting Classification 

As a very important factor in preserving right stand- 
ards of classification, some careful provision for ease of 
movement from one class to another next above is essen- 
tial. The semiannual promotion plan was among the 
first devices to be set up chiefly for this purpose. But 
here the time to be bridged over is frequently too long 
to be successfully covered. The plan carries with it the 
idea of special promotions on the part of the acceler- 
ants in a given group. It also simplifies the problem of 
getting those slightly retarded in readiness for the regu- 
lar forward movements of classes. 

A still more effective device for simpKfying such 
interclass movements is the one developed at Cam- 
bridge, Mass. By this plan two parallel courses are 
arranged for the eight grades of the elementary school. 
Course A, the basal course, is divided into twenty-three 
grades, three for each year except the eighth, which has 
but two. Thus each grade covers the work of about 
three months. Course B, the parallel or supplementary 



332 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

course, covers the same work in six years and is divided 
into seventeen grades. That is, pupils taking the basal 
course are required to do only two thirds as much 
work in a given time as those in course B. In each 
course there are three regular promotions a year, except 
in the last, where there are but two, in order to adjust 
to high-school entrance. Such a plan it will readily be 
seen, makes interclass changes, either upward or down- 
ward; a comparatively simple matter.^ 

8. What Shall Be the Basis for Promotions 

Whatever may be the plan adopted for general and 
special or inter-class promotions, some well-considered 
scheme as a basis for these promotions will be neces- 
sary. There are at least five such general schemes in 
use: (i) regular monthly and term examinations; (2) 
the class record of the pupils as kept from day to day; 
(3) a combination of (i) and (2) according to some arbi- 
trarily fixed ratio; (4) class record supplemented by a 
test intended to show the ability of the pupils to do the 
work which is to follow in the next higher grade; (5) 
promotion by subjects based on ordinary examination 
and class-record ratings. Few schools are to be found 
where scheme (i) is used exclusively. Scheme (2) oc- 
curs more frequently and especially in higher grades of 
school work. If the record has been thoughtfully made, 
not on the spur of the moment, as merely estimating 
the percentage value of a recitation, but deHberately 
after the class recitation is closed as expressing the com- 
prehension, the growth of the pupil, the estimate thus 
recorded may be a very safe index of the pupil's ad- 
vancement. 

1 For a fuller description of this plan, see the Annual Report of Cam- 
bridge for 1910, pp. 19-21. 



CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTIONS 333 

Still more satisfactory will be scheme (3) if thought- 
fully carried out. The examination should serve chiefly 
to indicate the pupil's grasp of knowledge involved, his 
clearness of analysis and consequent accuracy, his log- 
ical organization of the work gone over. The class rec- 
ord should show clearly a definite progress in knowl- 
edge and thought power or the contrary. Each should 
serve to check the other. The arbitrarily fixed ratio 
would better be avoided. A curious modification of 
this method is found in use in some high schools. Pupils 
who attain a certain standard in class record are ex- 
cused from the examination. This practically announces 
to the school that the sole utiKty of the examination 
consists in determining the pupil's rank and that even 
in this relation it can just as well be dispensed with. As 
a matter of fact, the examination, rightly conducted, may 
be one of the very best correctives for both teacher and 
pupil. This real value should not be thus discredited. 

Scheme (4) differs from (3) chiefly in the nature of 
the examinations, especially that made from the office 
of the superintendent. These examinations or tests are 
so framed as to seek to test the pupil's abiHty to go on 
with his work. The plan eliminates the possibihty of a 
mere memory test of what has been gone over in class. 
It seeks to know the abihty to use the knowledge and 
power attained as applied to the doing of the next grade 
of work. Especial emphasis has been put upon this 
method in the Oakland, Cal., schools under the super- 
vision of J. W. McClymonds. It has been used effec- 
tively in connection with a plan for special promotions 
adopted as the prevailing method in the Oakland schools. 

Scheme (5) is advocated with the idea that pupils 
should not mark time in all other subjects because of 
failure to carry one or two. Not only does such a plan 



334 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

do away with this evil of useless repetition but it also 
makes possible the repetition of work not at first accom- 
pHshed under much more favorable circumstances. It 
also facihtates the adaptation of the school curriculum 
to the needs of the individual pupil. The objections 
urged against this plan are: (a) difficulties of adminis- 
tration involved; (b) danger that the pupil may neglect 
a distasteful subject; (c) interference with desirable cor- 
relation of work. 

A very interesting modification of scheme (5) is de- 
scribed and commended by Superintendent W. H. Max- 
well, of New York City.^ The particular plan was in 
use in Miss Tucker's school, Public School No. 163, 
Manhattan. By this type of classification a pupil when 
promoted to a grade is classified on the basis of his 
weakest subject. '' In grades where there are two classes, 
the classes formed would be graded on the basis of 
weakness in arithmetic and in language. In grades hav- 
ing three classes, classification would be made on the 
basis of weakness in arithmetic, language, and manual- 
training subjects. The new classes are designated and 
known as 4 B Arithmetic, 4 B Language, 4 B Manual 
Training instead of as 4 B^, 4 B^, 4 B^." By means of 
such a plan each pupil in the school receives double 
time in his or her weakest subject, and so in many cases 
a pupil who is at first weak in a given subject later 
may rank strong in his class. Such a scheme of reor- 
ganization of classes seems to avoid most if not all of 
the disadvantages of the method of subject promotions. 

9. The Question as Applied to High Schools 

Thus far the elementary school has been under con- 
sideration. The situation is changed materially when 

1 See Report of New York City Schools, 1910-11, 



CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTIONS 335 

the high school is reached or even before this where 
the intermediate school is organized on the depart- 
mental plan. In both these situations promotions are 
almost universally by subjects, and the pupil who fails 
in a given subject either takes it over again at the first 
opportunity or substitutes an equivalent, according to 
the degree of election permitted in the school of which 
he is a member. The most troublesome cases in such 
instances are subjects in sequence. There is also to be 
encountered the difficulty of classifying so as to avoid 
conflicts in recitations. On the whole, it would seem 
that the plan used in the Manhattan school might be 
applied to great advantage in our larger high schools. 

10. In Higher Institutions 

In higher institutions generally the system of credit 
hours is used with Hberal election schemes. If a sub- 
ject in which a student fails to make his credit happens 
to be prescribed for his course as a prerequisite to other 
essential courses, or for graduation, the student must 
simply work through the difficulty as best he can in the 
time remaining for the completion of his work. The 
only help for the situation in these higher stages, aside 
from a general improvement of imdergraduate instruc- 
tion, is a more careful selection of courses in prepara- 
tion in the high school and also of the special line of 
work to be taken in the college or university. 

II. The Problem of Transfers 

In this process of classification and promotions there 
arises, as a sort of by-product, the problem of dealing 
with transfers from one school to another. The devel- 
opment of modern industries and commerce has greatly 
increased the mobihty of our population. As one result 



336 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

of this change scarcely a week passes during the months 
when schools are in session that does not bring to the 
administrative office of the schools of practically every 
town and city one or more pupils by transfer from 
other systems. These become special cases for adjust- 
ment. Differences in school management always stand 
out prominently in such instances. Fortunate, indeed, 
is it for the pupils concerned if they do not lose some- 
thing by the exchange. The work done in given sub- 
jects in the schools thus compared may differ widely 
either in quantity or quality, or both. Some things 
required in one school system may be entirely lacking 
in the other. The problem is frequently acute. 

In the case of the early elementary grades any dis- 
crepancy in work may soon be corrected, although not 
without becoming something of a tax upon the time of 
teacher and principal. As we advance in the grades the 
relative flexibility is less and the adjustment conse- 
quently more difficult. In the high school a scheme of 
equivalents may be used either by tacit agreement or 
by formal approval of the board. But even this will 
not always take care of subjects remaining in sequence 
through two or more years. In colleges and universi- 
ties the problem presents many complications due to 
wide variation in aims and purposes affecting the for- 
mulation of curricula. In one case a subject may be 
purely elective which in another corresponding pro- 
gramme may be made a prerequisite to courses fol- 
lowing. 

There is a certain form of transfers for which the 
above discussion does not provide. It is the demand 
arising each year and often through the year for trans- 
fer of pupils from one school to another in the same 
system. Frequently, too, such transfers are called for 



CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTIONS 337 

on account of overcrowding in certain schools caused by 
some sudden influx of population to the school com- 
munity. The latter cases are frequently best cared for 
by the use of the portable schoolhouse which serves as 
an annex to the estabUshed school. 

In the case of transfers called for on account of the 
thousand and one reasons which patrons offer in pre- 
senting their requests at the office of the superintendent 
there is usually more or less trouble in store for that 
official. Where regular district boundaries are estab- 
lished for both elementary and high schools the matter 
has to be handled with great care. The situation will 
be rendered still more acute when requests are backed 
up by 'influential citizens" or where, in case of dis- 
trict representation on the board, influence is brought 
to bear upon the superintendent through the member 
from that portion of the city in which the petitioner 
lives. 

Perhaps the most fortunate arrangement, all things 
considered, is to avoid the district plan of assignment 
altogether, as has been practised in Oakland, Cal., for 
a number of years. Pupils may then seek the school 
of their choice, but with the understanding that if the 
school to which they apply for admission has more appli- 
cants than there is room for the preference will be given 
to those residing nearest to the school. Then in case 
of rejection the pupil must go to the next best school of 
his or his parents' choosing where he can be admitted. 
This throws the whole responsibility back where it be- 
longs, on the ones seeking transfer for special reasons. 

12. Need of Reform in the Matter of Transfers 

In all its aspects the matter of transfer of pupils in 
our schools and students in our colleges really calls for 



338 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

some radical reform in the interests of true economy. 
The waste in this case will be seen to be both financial 
and in Hfe possibiHties of children and youth. Prob- 
ably nothing short of a closer and more expert super- 
vision such as was advocated in chapter XIII can be 
found to effectively remedy the defect. There are, no 
doubt, situations where a little more flexibihty in the 
shape of a willingness to accept equivalent work along 
other Hnes than those required by the receiving school 
or institution would save students entering by transfer 
from irretrievable loss. Such a course, if adopted, needs 
to be clearly thought out by some one who is broad 
enough to weigh relative values rather than by some 
instructor or administrative officer whose subject or 
institutional prejudice might lead him to be partial in 
judgment. 

13. Scientific Treatment Will Bring Relief 

It marks a great day in educational advancement that 
the Hght of real scientific study has been turned on these 
problems. Even now no city superintendent of any 
city that is educationally self-respecting dares to neglect 
a careful survey of his classifications. He will see to it 
that the number and causes of retardation are known; 
and if remedies are not provided, so far as it is now 
possible for school authorities to prescribe them, it will 
not be by reason of failure on his part to make proper 
recommendations to his board. The work to be under- 
taken by the commission on school efficiency established 
by the Department of Superintendents of the National 
Education Association^ is evidence that our superinten- 
dents are awake to both the needs and the possibilities 
presented in these problems which concern so closely 

^ Established at the Philadelphia meeting, 19 13. 



CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTIONS 339 

this important phase of the work of instruction — the 
classification and promotion of the young throughout 
the period of pubHc-school training. 

14. University of Missouri Plan 

Similar efforts to arrive at a more rational treatment 
of the problem, as it appears in colleges and universities, 
are not lacking. In this field the University of Mis- 
souri has led in a very decisive and creditable way by 
adopting the device of scientifically distributing stu- 
dents' grades according to the natural distribution of 
ability or achievement. The plan was adopted by the 
faculty of the University of Missouri in 1908. The fol- 
lowing brief description of this method of grading quoted 
from another writer^ will be sufficient for the purposes 
of this discussion: "The system in question was intro- 
duced by the faculty, and its administration is in charge 
of a special committee of the faculty. It is definitely 
based upon the assumption that the distribution of abil- 
ity or achievement in college classes is approximately 
normal. Every teacher is expected to rank the students 
in his classes in order of merit and then to assign the 
grades E and S (excellent and superior) to the 25 per 
cent ranking highest, the grades I and F (inferior and 
failure) to the 25 per cent ranking lowest, and the grade 
M (medium) to the remaining 50 per cent between. At 
present the distribution of the grades E and S and I and 
F among the groups of students ranking highest and 
lowest, respectively, is left to the individual teachers. 
The committee on grading, after the close of each sem- 
ester, pubHshes a statistical table showing the char- 

^ "Scientific Grading of College Students," Raymond W. Sies, Pro- 
fessor of School Administration, University of Pittsburg, 191 2. (Re- 
print from Univ. of Pittsburg Bulletin, vol. VIII, no. 21.) 



340 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

acter of the grading of each teacher for the semester 
and since the inauguration of the present system. This 
table is circulated among the faculty. Teachers whose 
grading deviates markedly from the standards estab- 
lished are called to account by the committee and asked 
to justify their failure to conform. The grading of 
teachers of small classes is expected to conform to the 
standards only when taken through a series of semesters 
or years. This new system has very largely ehminated 
the diversity of practice in grading at Missouri." 

It seems entirely within the range of possibility that 
some such scientific method for measuring achievement 
through examinations will in time be so perfected and 
its operation be found so satisfactory as to lead to its 
general adoption by college and university faculties. 
In fact, it may readily become more general in its apph- 
cation; for there is no reason why it might not apply 
to all systems of markings where different portions of 
the individual's work are to be graded by different 
teachers. This would include all high-school work and 
might also readily apply to the elementary or inter- 
mediate school where the work is departmentally ar- 
ranged. There would also readily appear a field for its 
use in teacher's examinations where the markings of 
subjects are by different persons. There is certainly 
room for some such improvement in all these depart- 
ments of educational classifying by grades. 



CHAPTER XX 
ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS OF THE SCHOOL 

There are certain activities and relations of the schools 
having to do more or less directly with the work of in- 
struction which have not yet received the attention they 
deserve in this treatment of the subject. In all types 
and at all stages of educational work some more or less 
definite daily programme of study, recitation, exercise, 
or lecture is usually followed. The arrangement of 
such a programme, in any case, requires some care with 
reference to certain principles involved. 

I. The Daily Programme 

Children in the early years of school work need little 
time for study. About all they can do between recita- 
tions will be to engage in some seat work, such as writ- 
ing, drawing, cutting, and construction, with materials 
ready to hand; or they may engage in directed play. 
Gradually, as they advance in age and grade, they should 
be taught the steps in preparation of lessons or exer- 
cises. As they advance into the period of sustained 
thinking, even of limited duration, they should be set 
problems which call for such mental exercise along dif- 
ferent lines as represented in the different subjects. 
But always the period for such work should be timed 
to correspond to the limitations of the power of atten- 
tion to one thing and of the pupils' range of mental 

341 



342 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

action. Likewise, in the recitation period, the time 
should vary, gradually increasing upward. The teacher 
should ever be alert to note the flagging interest and 
lack of attention which mark the limit of successful ef- 
fort for a given period. 

There is no finer test of the teacher's ability than 
the degree of success with which the adjustment of as- 
signed study work and that undertaken in the recita- 
tion are seen to correspond to the present attainments 
of the members of a class as to power of sustained effort 
in attention. On the other hand, there is no more fruit- 
ful source of waste and of the forming of bad habits on 
the part of those taught than the failure on the part 
of the teacher to regulate the periods on a basis at least 
approximately normal. 

Not only age and degree of advancement but also the 
character of the subject or exercise have to do with the 
determination of these periods. Further, the time of 
day, the physical condition of those taught, various 
unavoidable distractions will come in for consideration 
as modifying causes. Only those who intuitively grasp 
and sense these things, or those who, through careful 
study of psychology, have mastered the principles in- 
volved and their application, can be intrusted, without 
thoughtful advice and direction, with the adjusting of 
the time factors of the daily programme. 

2. The Problem of Fatigue 

Expressed in another way, it is the problem of fatigue 
that is to be hourly, daily met and solved. Under the 
old methods of the school, people thought to compel at- 
tention to study. It mattered not if the child's mental 
alertness was gone, the ability to fix attention on a given 
exercise exhausted. The everlasting ''you must," with 



ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS OF SCHOOL 343 

threatened punishment for failure, has had to yield to 
the psychological law. This does not mean soft peda- 
gogy. It is not the difficult things that come later in 
the exercises of the school that cause the trouble and 
are to be avoided or explained away by the teacher. 
Real interest in doing, in overcoming, will carry the 
pupil over these hard places, leaving him with the fine 
reward of conscious success at the end. Fatigue is not 
distaste for doing a thing. It is nature's cry of " enough " 
and must be heeded, or unpleasant, possibly disastrous, 
results may follow. This does not always require cessa- 
tion of effort. A variation in occupation or exercise 
may serve the purpose. In the earlier grades brief pe- 
riods of attention to learning processes should be fol- 
lowed by play, preferably in the open air. As pupils 
progress, the periods for the recitation or for study may 
gradually increase in length. As this abihty to attend 
and later to concentrate for much longer periods upon 
problems of business or of one's profession or other call- 
ing is fundamental to successful Hving, its normal and 
full development in the process of education becomes 
very important. 

3. Value of the Play Instinct 

On the other hand, it is well that the play instinct be 
kept alive throughout not only the period of one's school- 
days but to the end of Hfe. For, while variation of ac- 
tivity may be made to serve more and more as a means 
of rehef from fatiguing effort, there is nothing quite 
equal to the spontaneous, happy spirit of play to relieve 
the tension to one's nervous system which comes from 
any prolonged attention to a sustained line of thought, 
no matter what may be the subject. Equally vital, as 
well as difiicult of adjustment, therefore, is this problem 



344 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

of providing, in the programme of school exercises, for 
proper periods of relaxation in healthful sport. 

4. Theory of Rest 

There will still remain the need of rest, which also 
should be a matter of care at all stages of school work, 
and especially with the very young, the abnormal, or 
the underfed. Somewhere, either in the home or in the 
school, or in both, the human race, especially the Ameri- 
can branch of it, needs to be instructed in the art of 
resting and also in discovering the need and the value 
of rest as a means of increasing one's happiness and 
power of accomplishment. We hear much about the 
cause of temperance, and that is well. But we go on 
disregarding one of the most fundamental causes of in- 
temperance by neglecting to study and teach the art 
of resting and its proper appHcation. If, in our school 
work, by the introduction of certain features of the 
Montessori method or by any other means, we may 
instil from early childhood right habits and, later, prin- 
ciples of rest as related to accomplishment, no doubt we 
shall have gone a long way toward the elimination of 
a real national weakness. 

5. The Lunch Problem 

Closely allied to problems of recreation, fatigue, and 
rest is the lunch problem of the schools. The matter 
of properly nourishing the body in these days of com- 
plexity of food supply with all the uncertainty of source 
and quahty grows yearly more serious. The situation 
is further aggravated in our cities by the confectioners' 
stores which always spring up in close proximity to the 
school. Could it be possible that some day there should 
be employed by each school unit of control large enough 



ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS OF SCHOOL 345 

to support such a thing an expert whose duties should 
include the recommendation to parents of what to in- 
clude in the child's lunch either brought to be eaten 
cold at school or served at the home dinner-table? Does 
not this midday refreshment bear a sufhciently close 
relationship to the normal work of instruction to war- 
rant such treatment? Already our large city schools 
are attempting a remedy by providing the warm lunch- 
eon at cost. In several instances, also, the underfed 
are being cared for by providing them with good milk 
to drink at the schools for specials, where most of those 
suffering from this and other forms of malnutrition go. 
In one city,^ at least, provision is made by the student 
organizations of some of the high schools for supplying 
sanitary candies and other sweets at school on a basis 
of actual cost of making and handling. 

6. The Problem in Higher Institutions 

The situation as regards all these problems affecting 
the daily routine of school exercises is at least as unsat- 
isfactory, proportionately, in the case of our higher in- 
stitutions of learning, commonly speaking. The general 
disregard of any thorough treatment, either sane or 
sanitary, of problems of recreation, rest, and refreshment 
in connection with student Kfe at these institutions is 
simply astounding to one who has developed any sen- 
sibihties toward such situations. Can it be possible that 
we may adequately justify these practices leading to a 
general devitalizing of this body of what may readily 
be considered the choicest of our young men and women 
— solely on the ground of the inviolability of their re- 
cently acquired personal freedom? Has the State, has 
society, which establishes and maintains these institu- 

^ The city of Los Angeles, Cal. 



346 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

tions of learning for the public good, no voice, no right, 
no duty in attempting to regulate these practices? 

7. Meaning of Recitation and Study Periods 

The value and the legitimate uses of the study period 
and of periods for recitation, exercise, or lecture need to 
be understood and appreciated by all those having a 
part in the work of instruction. They should be ap- 
proached, they will be approached, by the true teacher 
as one accepts a rare opportunity. They have been 
looked forward to — prepared for. The next thing in 
order is clearly seen, together with the normal process 
that is to unfold with the steps which follow. There 
is no dallying over forgotten relations; no fiUing in of 
time with aimless or empty questions or remarks; no 
uncertain note; no careless turning aside to waste time 
on questions merely incidental or unrelated entirely to 
the real, vital purposes of the hour. The well-directed 
recitation will vary from day to day. Now it will be 
to test the pupils on principles to be applied; again 
will come the formal drill on something which must 
become automatic; next will follow a general discus- 
sion of some event, or character, or institution, or proc- 
ess; or there may appear the need of careful guidance 
in preparation of work. To-day the teacher may utilize 
the time for expositional work; to-morrow the pupils 
may do all the talking. Whatever may be uppermost 
at a given time, there will always be a definite aim in 
view, a certain work to be accomplished, as part of the 
larger general purpose which a given subject may rep- 
resent in the whole process of education. 



ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS OF SCHOOL 347 



8. The School as a Community 

The more nearly the school represents a community 
organization, at least in miniature, the greater will be- 
come its vital force in the larger community of which it 
is, or may be, an idealized counterpart. We have had 
too much of the completely isolated t^'pe of school for 
the good of education. Even when we speak of the 
''ideahzed counterpart" the thought is not that the 
school should be ideahzed away from its normal envi- 
ronment and contacts with wholesome interests of every- 
day Hving. It is rather that the school should repre- 
sent these wholesome interests in proper adjustment 
and as far as possible without the unwholesome influ- 
ences to be found at work in most communities. In 
order to do this there will come days when the regular 
daily programme will need to be varied or set aside 
entirely. Such special days and exercises carefully 
chosen as representing ideals to be emphasized and in- 
stilled are an essential part of education. But there is 
always a chance on these occasions of losing sight of the 
real ideal and developing undesirable habits instead. 

Among the special days and exercises above referred 
to are the birthdays of our great national characters, 
traditional days of a semi-rehgious character, great 
events in literary history, or special days for certain 
seasons of the year. Then there are the special oppor- 
tunities for exhibiting achievement in such interests as 
EngHsh expression, in rhetoricals; musical accompHsh- 
ment, vocal and instrumental; art work, pure or ap- 
plied; various other accomplishments, as in manual and 
household arts, etc. When the school has succeeded 
well in taking on the community aspect these things 



348 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

will all come in as a natural part of community life, 
and will thus be greatly enhanced in their educational 
value and also in the interest aroused on the part of 
the community at large. For instance, the music and 
literary exercises may come, as a matter of course, in 
the expression of community feeling on some memo- 
rable occasion to be celebrated. Another illustration 
would be found in a school where efficiency in house- 
hold and manual arts was made manifest in various 
schemes of interior furnishings or decorations of school- 
rooms for special purposes. This would also bring into 
the presentation much of art and design. Always it is 
the usual formal set programmes and exercises that the 
children and older students dread and shrink from, 
while those things which are natural and obvious as a 
part of the community life are done with readiness and 
real pleasure. It need scarcely be added that when 
such a condition exists these things are also better done. 

9. School Savings-Banks and School Gardens 

In connection with this community spirit of the school, 
the school garden and the school savings-bank have be- 
come important features in many city school systems. 
Among cities which lead in the school-garden feature 
are Cleveland, Memphis, and Los Angeles. Cleveland 
was the first to organize a regular department for this 
work with the appointment of a curator to supervise 
the work. Memphis has also taken steps for a similar 
supervision under the direction of Superintendent L. E. 
Wolfe. Los Angeles has over sixty gardens in opera- 
tion, according to the 191 2 report. The high schools of 
the latter city are particularly strong in this respect. 
Regular courses are given in small gardening, horticul- 
ture, and landscape work. At the Gardena high school, 



ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS OF SCHOOL 349 

which is the agricultural high school of the city under 
the scheme of differentiation which Superintendent 
Frances has established, is the most extensive plant of 
all. Here about ten acres of ground are available. The 
courses include, with those given above, farm crops, 
dairying, and poultry-raising. The system is fully or- 
ganized for the city, with a supervisor and several as- 
sistants. 

The school savings-banks are an older development 
in the schools. The first of these is said to have been 
started in 1885 in Long Island City, N. Y. The ob- 
ject of this feature is to cultivate habits of thrift. In 
191 2 the reports showed twenty-five States as having 
savings systems established in some of their schools. 
In some instances this business feature has assumed 
rather large proportions. In Pennsylvania, for instance, 
the reports for January i, 191 2, showed a balance to 
depositors of $344,769.87; Ohio reports for the same 
year gave $109,610.65; and California, $77,513.52. 
Seventeen other States showed balances ranging from 
$1,000 to nearly $70,000. 

10. High-School Management of Business Afifairs 

Closely allied to this latter interest, as tending to 
develop thrift and also a w^holesome community spirit, 
is the plan of having the students of high schools man- 
age all business affairs of the high-school community. 
Here Los Angeles comes to the fore again with a fine 
organization of student acti\ities and interests in which 
the teachers freely join. They assume the business 
management not only of their athletic, social, musical, 
dramatic, and Kterary events, but also of book ex- 
changes, confectionery booths, and cafeteria lunch 
service. If they need to construct a tennis-court or an 



350 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

amphitheatre for athletic purposes, or provide a print- 
ing outfit or a moving-picture equipment, they organize 
stock companies, seUing stock to students and teachers, 
and go ahead. And here comes in a bit of fine civic 
training. No one receives any financial gain out of these 
enterprises. A faculty member, as treasurer, checks all 
accounts. If there is any surplus after all bills are paid, 
this goes to a general school or school-community fund. 
In one instance, at least, a portion of the proceeds is 
used to defray the expenses of indigent students in 
order that they may continue in school. 

II. Extension Work of the School 

This active relationship of the school, not only as a 
community within itself but also and especially as con- 
cerns the larger community of which it is a part, bears 
a very close and intimate relationship to the sum total 
of the achievement of instruction. It becomes a power- 
ful factor in estabhshing the school in the minds and 
hearts of the community to which it looks for its con- 
tinuation and support. In many of our cities the 
schools are coming gradually to be looked upon as social 
centres. In the more progressive cities and districts 
schools are being built with this idea definitely in view. 
Rooms are provided for literary clubs, for lectures, for 
pubHc assemblies of various kinds. Laboratory and li- 
brary facilities are being more widely shared by those in 
school and out. Provision is being made for the social 
Hfe of the young as well as for the training in night- 
schools of those out of school who are thirsting for 
knowledge. All are famihar with the elaborate system 
of pubHc evening lectures conducted by the schools of 
New York City. These lectures are free and are con- 
ducted at many different centres — 174 according to the 



ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS OF SCHOOL 351 

1912 report. The lectures offered are technical in char- 
acter. The centres are presided over by specialists, and 
the lectures grouped under three headings as to subjects: 
(i) literature, history, the fine arts, and social subjects; 
(2) science and industries; (3) geography and descrip- 
tion of countries. The same report (191 2) shows the 
total number of lectures to have been 5,573, with an 
average nightly attendance of 179 and an aggregate at- 
tendance of 1,000,190. 

In the city of Cleveland the lectures are of a popu- 
lar character. Milwaukee has developed a strong sys- 
tem of lectures, mostly illustrated, which are proving a 
great stimulus to social betterment. Many other cities, 
ranging from most of the leading large centres to smaller 
cities generally, are undertaking similar lines of work. 
All of this is helping to bring about that condition nec- 
essary in order to so distribute the results of progress 
in learning among all the people as to preserve such a 
healthful state of general intelligence on the part of 
those whose school days are over as the character of 
our social order demands. 

There is also a corresponding passive or receptive 
side to the larger social relationships of the school. The 
enHstment of patrons in these social aspects of educa- 
tion through the organization of patrons' clubs has 
marked the beginning of better things educationally 
in a number of centres where now are to be found some 
of the best educational systems in our country. 

12. Vacation Schools 

A perennial problem of the school is the vacation 
time. If all the pupils could be pleasantly and profit- 
ably employed, at play or at work, in their homes or 
through home influences, the situation would be different; 



352 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

no problem would exist. But such is not the case in 
most instances. The result is worse than a mere break- 
ing off from all the lines of development set up in the 
school. In the case of many of the pupils, especially 
of the elementary grades, new and abnormal lines of 
development are started. In the cities, where many of 
the children are thrown upon the streets for the ordi- 
nary long summer vacation, the problem becomes acute. 

There are not lacking other and urgent reasons for 
the estabhshment of vacation schools as these educa- 
tional organizations are most frequently called. The 
school period of many of the children is limited at least 
to the legal limit by reason of economic pressure. The 
summer term makes it possible to gain the length of 
one ordinary school year in three or, at most, four sum- 
mers of attendance. Such an extension of time also 
gives those who have fallen behind through illness or 
other enforced absence, or by reason of mental slowness 
in certain subjects, an opportunity to make up lost 
ground and so keep out of the classes for ''specials." 

The first of these vacation schools was opened in 
Newark, N. J., where in 191 2 the first experiment was 
also made in the all-year school. The earher forms of 
these schools, and, indeed, the form now most common, 
was intended especially to furnish occupation under 
suitable surroundings for children in the more con- 
gested portions of cities. These schools undertook such 
exercises as directed play, singing, nature study, and 
some light manual work. More recently another type 
has developed, which is distinctly academic in character. 
The all-year schools of Newark are examples. These 
were so successful the first year that the number of 
schools was greatly increased for the summer of 19 13. 



ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS OF SCHOOL 353 



13. The All- Year Type of School 

The courses in these all-year schools are arranged so 
that the work corresponds to the regular school pro- 
gramme. The regular school year is di\dded into three 
terms of twelve weeks each, leaving twelve weeks for 
the summer term or quarter. In this way slow pupils 
may gain time, while those who must shorten the school 
period make more rapid progress while in school. Cleve- 
land conducts a vacation school of this character. In 
some cases, however, the summer or vacation school is 
organized chiefly for those who are dehnquent in their 
work. Such a review school is typified by the work 
done in Saint Louis by recommendation of Superinten- 
dent Blewett. This work also seems to have proven suc- 
cessful and to meet a real demand. 

In the all-year schools of Newark there were enrolled, 
in the summer of 191 2, 764 grammar pupils, 1,695 P^i" 
mary, and 390 kindergarten, or a total of 2,849. The 
average attendance was 2,397, or 91.7 per cent. In the 
Saint Louis experiment in 191 1 there were in attendance 
in grade schools 1,592 and in the high schools 676 pupils, 
or a total of 2,268. At the beginning of the last week 
of the term (seven weeks of six days each, morning ses- 
sions only) the total membership was 1,595. These fig- 
ures are given here merely to show to what extent the 
people have responded where opportunities have been 
furnished, on the same level as regular school work, for 
summer attendance at school. 

Evidently sentiment is rapidly crystallizing in favor 
of such an extension of the school programme, already 
an estabhshed practice in many higher institutions of 
learning. The State legislature of Wisconsin in 191 1 



354 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

enacted a law permitting cities of that State to organ- 
ize and maintain vacation schools. As in all other move- 
ments for improved and enlarged educational facilities, 
the problem of financing is involved. . If, as is doubt- 
less true, it can be shown that such a movement is but 
the shifting of a social burden with a distinct gain by 
reason of the shift, there can be Httle doubt but that, 
with the general readjustment going on in our schools, 
the all-year session will become a fixed policy of States 
and communities generally, or, at least, of city com- 
munities. 

What has been said in regard to the school as related 
to the community may be said with special emphasis of 
normal schools and universities. For both of these 
types there is a great work, in the larger community 
of the State as a whole, in conveying to teachers at 
work in the schools the results of such laboratory work 
in education as these institutions may be called upon 
to do. In the nature of the case, most of this would de- 
volve upon the universities as the institutions organized 
more specifically for carrying forward research in the 
field of educational progress. At the same time, there 
is a very promising field for the normal schools in bring- 
ing up the training of our elementary teachers in ele- 
mentary psychology, the theory of instruction, and espe- 
cially the technic of the classroom. This is a field 
of activity for these higher institutions the possibilities 
of which have scarcely been touched as yet. 

We may say, indeed, that the university in particular 
has for its community work in the State the whole field 
of industrial and civic interests. In the acceptance of 
this obligation our colleges of agriculture are far in the 
lead, a fact due in no small degree to the impetus given 
by the more recent federal grants of subsidies for the 



ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS OF SCHOOL 355 

carrying forward of this particular department of State- 
wide education. Among institutions undertaking to 
meet this responsibility in a broader sense, as including 
general civic interests, the State of Wisconsin is clearly 
entitled to the distinction of leadership. 



CHAPTER XXI 

PRIVATE EDUCATION AND BENEFACTIONS AS 
RELATED TO PUBLIC EDUCATION 

I. Growth of Private Compared with Public 
Education 

No discussion of educational administration in a de- 
mocracy like our own could be complete without some 
reference to the work done through private initiative 
or beneficence. In view of the history of educational 
development in this country, it is but natural that there 
should have been established large numbers of schools 
as private enterprises or as a part of systems of educa- 
tion of a religious character and serving often as propa- 
ganda for sectarian rehgious doctrines. With the fuller 
development of a system of pubHc education the num- 
ber of such schools has relatively decreased, as shown 
by statistics. The United States Commissioner's Report 
for 191 1 gives the following: In 1890 there were 12,- 
494,233 children receiving instruction in public elemen- 
tary schools and 1,116,300 in private schools of the 
same class. In 19 10 the corresponding numbers were 
16,898,791 and 1,441,037, respectively, showing a rela- 
tively large increase in the pubHc schools. For schools 
of secondary grade the numbers for the same years were 
221,522 and 145,481, in 1890, and 938,437 and 193,029, 
in 1 9 10, thus showing a still greater relative increase 
for the public schools of secondary grade. For students 

356 



PRIVATE EDUCATION AND BENEFACTIONS 357 

receiving higher instruction the figures are, for 1890, 
43,393 and 91,849; for 1910, 159,713 and 180,915. In 
this case, while the number of students attending pri- 
vate institutions still leads, the difference has been re- 
duced from 48,456 to 21,202, or by more than one half. 
The higher instruction here includes (i) universities and 
colleges, (2) schools of medicine, law, and theology, and 
(3) normal schools. 

2. The Problem Presented 

Thus, in an open field where private initiative has 
been entirely unrestrained, public education is steadily 
gaining ground. This freedom has left individuals or 
organizations practically without guidance or restric- 
tion in the estabHshment of various t>T>es of schools. 
As President Pritchett puts it in his 191 1 report: ''In 
all but a few of the States of the Union any association 
of men who, for educational or business reasons or as a 
matter of local pride, desire to start a school or college 
may incorporate under the State law and obtain the 
right to grant all the degrees that higher institutions 
may confer. This lack of supervision both on the part 
of the general government and, to a large extent, on the 
part of the State governments has resulted not only in 
an extraordinarily large nu'mber of institutions bearing 
the name of college or university, but it has resulted also 
in the fact that these institutions have become involved 
in local rivalries, so that they represent in very small 
measure national ideals or national purposes." Doctor 
Kerschensteiner, in his comparison of public education 
in Germany and in the United States, voices a simi- 
lar thought when he says: ''Excessive freedom [in the 
United States] leads to the development of private edu- 
cational institutions to an unusual degree, and, since 



358 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

they are frequently established for profit rather than 
for cultural aims, or in other cases are denominational 
in purpose, they may become a real disadvantage to 
the State." 

3. What Should Be the Attitude of the State? 

These views, coming from men of such eminence edu- 
cationally and in positions to judge broadly and in an 
entirely impartial spirit, cannot pass unheeded by any 
loyal citizen of our republic to whom they may come. 
It would certainly seem that where such great interests 
are at stake States should not hesitate to act in such 
manner as to protect the nation against any possible 
organization of forces likely to prove inimical to our 
cherished ideals and institutions. In the first place, it 
seems fair to say that no educational institution found 
to be estabhshed and maintained purely as a commer- 
cial enterprise should be permitted to receive or retain 
a charter. And in deciding all such cases the State 
should have the benefit of the doubt. In the second 
place, schools maintained by religious denominations, 
where a large part or all of the pupils* legal school 
years is spent in such training, should be required to 
give ample instruction in the history of our country and 
in a knowledge of the nature and obligations of citizen- 
ship. They should also be required to use every oppor- 
tunity to instil our national ideals. For securing the 
observation of such requirements, such schools or insti- 
tutions would necessarily have to be open to inspection 
by the State. 

It may be said of any non-State institution estab- 
lished for educational purposes that its incorporation 
should carry with it the obligation to uphold our na- 
tional life and institutions and to do nothing to hinder 



PRIVATE EDUCATION AND BENEFACTIONS 359 

in any way the proper development and efficiency in 
operation of any part of State systems of education. 
How, with anything short of such regulation and super- 
vision, can we be assured that we are not harboring in 
our midst some propaganda of ideals that are utterly 
inimical to democracy? How else can we justify com- 
pulsory-attendance law^s? There are in our midst, to 
be sure, a number of great institutions well known and 
revered because of their great service to the nation. 
They sprang from the same spirit of liberty and inde- 
pendence which actuated those who founded this nation. 
There are others of later origin also, established, let us 
believe, out of an unselfish devotion to our national wel- 
fare. Let it not be supposed that any of these are to 
be included in the characterizations given in what pre- 
cedes or follows. 

It is not enough that the founders of these less desir- 
able schools and institutions declare that they are only 
catering to a real demand; that there are those who 
prefer to be in a class by themselves and to pay for what 
they get. If by such means there is to be fostered and 
perpetuated an unwholesome class feeling, then such 
schools are unfavorable to the instilling of ideals essen- 
tial to democracy and should be dispensed with. Of 
all institutions which should not be permitted to exist 
unless thoroughly imbued with our national ideals and 
spirit are those institutions which are to train the 
teachers for our public schools. 

4. Educational Foundations 

In an entirely different class, however, are those in- 
stitutions commonly known as educational foundations.^ 

1 A very good description of these is to be found in the U. S. Com- 
missioner's Report, 191 1, vol. I, pp. 29-34. 



360 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

Among the most notable of these are the following: (i) 
The Carnegie Institution, founded in Washington in 1902 
and incorporated by act of Congress. The initial en- 
dowment was $10,000,000, subsequently increased to 
$22,000,000. This was founded for the purpose of co- 
operating with other institutions so as to encourage, in 
a broad and liberal manner, such research and discovery 
as might require time and the employment of able men, 
and to seek to further the application of knowledge to 
general social improvement. (2) The same year there 
was organized the General Education Board in New York. 
The charter of this board makes its function broad and 
far-reaching in all departments of education. It was es- 
tablished with the same general purpose of co-operation 
in solving the more diihcult problems in the field of pub- 
lic education. This board has an endowment (191 1) of 
$30,000,000, the gift of John D. Rockefeller. It also 
holds in trust the sum of $22,000,000 from the same 
source. The activities of this board have, in the North, 
been confined to the promotion of higher education. 
In the South its work has been of a broader nature. 
Much has been done through this board to build up 
secondary education in the Southern States.^ (3) In 
1906 Mr. Carnegie again came forward with the estab- 
lishment of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advance- 
ment of Teaching. The endowment was first set at $10-, 
000,000, but was afterward increased to $15,000,000. 
The purpose set forth by the donor in his letter to the 
trustees stated that the revenue from this fund was to 
be used to provide retiring pensions for teachers of 
universities, colleges, and technical schools in the United 
States, Canada, and Newfoundland. At first. State in- 
stitutions were not to be included, but were afterward 

1 More fully discussed in Chapter XIV. 



PRIVATE EDUCATION AND BENEFACTIONS 361 

added, together with the increase of $5,000,000 in the 
endowment. (4) The Russell Sage Foundation was es- 
tablished by Mrs. Russell Sage, New York, 1907, by a 
gift of $10,000,000. Its purpose, as set forth in the 
charter, included research, publication, education, and 
the establishment and maintenance of various charitable 
and benevolent enterprises. Mrs. Sage stipulated par- 
ticularly that "it should be its aim to take up the larger, 
more difficult problems, and to take them up so far as 
possible in such a manner as to secure co-operation and 
aid in their solution." (5) The Jeanes Fund was given 
by Miss Anna T. Jeanes, of Philadelphia, in 1907. The 
fund was $1,000,000 and was to aid in securing better 
rural schools for the negroes. Reports show that much 
effective and valuable service has been rendered through 
the administration of this fund. 

It is due the founders and trustees of these munificent 
additions to the forces for educational uplift that the 
American public generally should know of and appre- 
ciate these gifts and the far-reaching influences for good 
which have thus been set up. It is doubtless true that 
there has been sometimes in the administration of these 
various foundations an incHnation to overlook the re- 
strictions as to infringement upon the free evolution and 
operation of public educational institutions. It is prob- 
ably also true that this may be attributed to the zeal 
of administrators along their own preconceived lines 
rather than to any fundamental purpose in the pro- 
jection of these beneficences. Taking the work already 
accompHshed by them as an index, there are certainly 
great possibilities in store, much, probably most, of 
which will have a more or less direct bearing upon pub- 
lic instruction in our schools. 



CHAPTER XXII 
THE FORWARD LOOK 

I. Persistence of an Educational Ideal 

In the fourth century B. C. Aristotle wrote as follows 
in his ''Pohtics": *'No one will doubt that the legisla- 
tor should direct his attention above all to the education 
of youth or that the neglect of education does harm to 
states. The citizen should be moulded to suit the form 
of government under which he lives. For each govern- 
ment has a peculiar character which originally formed 
and which continues to preserve it. The character of 
democracy creates democracy, and the character of oli- 
garchy creates oligarchy; and always the better the 
character the better the government.'' No man can 
estimate what tremendous influence over the minds of 
succeeding generations of statesmen the writings of this 
great thinker of antiquity have wielded. 

In 1524 A. D., or nearly two thousand years after 
Aristotle, Martin Luther, in his letter to the city offi- 
cials of Germany in behalf of Christian schools, gave 
expression to these memorable words: ''Even if there 
were no soul, as I have already said, and men did not 
need schools and the languages for the sake of Chris- 
tianity and the Scriptures, still, for the estabHshment of 
the best schools everywhere, both for boys and girls, 
this consideration is of itself sufficient, namely, that so- 
ciety, for the maintenance of civil order and the proper 

362 



THE FORWARD LOOK 363 

regulation of the household, needs accompHshed and 
well-trained men and women." Thus early under the 
influences of the Christian era, with all Europe in the 
turmoil of reorganization, was expressed the fundamen- 
tal quality of popular education as a means of perpetuat- 
ing the home and the state. 

Coming on down the centuries for about two hundred 
and sixty years we read again, in the language of the 
Ordinance of 1787: ^'ReHgion, morahty, and knowledge 
being necessary to good government and the happiness 
of mankind, schools and the means of education shall 
be forever encouraged." As practical evidence of faith 
in the significance of this statement, the framers of this 
remarkable document provided a substantial basis for 
the endowment of pubhc education in the States, yet 
unborn, of the vast Northwest. 

''If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state 
of civilization," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1816, ''it ex- 
pects what never was and never will be. The functions 
of every government have propensities to command 
at will the Hberty and property of their constituents. 
There is no safe deposit for these but with the people 
themselves; nor can they be safe with them without 
information." In 1845, ^-^ter having led in that great 
educational revival in New England which brought 
about the establishment of normal schools and gave Mas- 
sachusetts a State board of education, Horace Mann, the 
first secretary of that board, wrote in his educational re- 
port for that year: "Our common schools are a system 
of unsurpassable grandeur and efficiency. Their influ- 
ences reach, with more or less directness and intensity, 
all the children belonging to the State. They act upon 
these children at the most impressible period of their 
existence, imparting qualities of mind and heart which 



364 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

will be magnified by dififusion and deepened by time, 
until they will be involved into national character, into 
weal or woe, into renown or ignorance; and, at last, will 
stamp their ineffaceable seal upon our history." 

Advancing another half century in American history, 
we find again the thread of thought clearly expressed, 
in 1898, by Woodrow Wilson, now President of the 
United States, in the following words: '^Popular edu- 
cation is necessary for the preservation of those condi- 
tions of freedom, poKtical and social, which are indis- 
pensable to free individual development. And, in the 
second place, no instrumentality less universal in its 
power and authority than government can secure popu- 
lar education. . . . Without popular education, more- 
over, no government which rests upon popular action 
can long endure. The people must be schooled in the 
knowledge, and if possible in the virtues, upon which the 
maintenance and success of free institutions depend." 

Again, within the present year, President Charles W. 
Dabney, of the University of Cincinnati, speaks as fol- 
lows: ''Man has, indeed, the right to govern himself, 
but without education he has not the capacity. Suf- 
frage is not a natural right but a privilege assigned to 
those who qualify themselves for its proper exercise in 
accordance with a standard fixed by the state. All men, 
except abnormals, possess the capacity for education, 
and when educated have the power to govern them- 
selves and the right to take part in the government of 
others. Democracy means self-government; self-govern- 
ment necessitates universal education, and universal edu- 
cation can only be accomplished by free public schools 
under the control of all the people." 

In this series of expressions, extending through a pe- 
riod of twenty-two and a half centuries, what a remark- 



THE FORWARD LOOK 365 

able persistency is seen of the fundamental note — the 
need and importance of education as a safeguard to 
the state. Yet who of us is prepared to comprehend 
the full significance of this principle when appHed to 
evolution of a great country like our own? What is to 
be the measure of this knowledge, this information, this 
inteUigence of the masses as we sweep on to still unknown 
stages of our national life history? We know that in 
our constructive work — in the building of bridges, of 
ships, of great city buildings that ascend skyward — men 
begin to doubt the sufficiency of those mathematical 
formulas by which, heretofore, the builder has been accus- 
tomed to solve problems of strength and resistance. So, 
in this realm of the human understanding of great social 
and economic problems, who is to say what shall be the 
measure of that intelligence and that wisdom on the 
part of a great body of people whose dweUing-place ex- 
tends so far and includes so many variations in those 
natural forces which are known to affect human lives? 

2. The Problem of To-Day 

The clear note struck by Aristotle has grown chiefly 
in volume and in the extent of its application. It is the 
remarkable persistency of it which must remove the last 
shred of any doubt that may have lingered in our minds. 
The problem of to-day is to find what applications to 
make of this principle and what must be insisted on by 
society as the minimum amount of popular education. 
The common man, no matter what part he may have 
in the industrial world, shares equally with all his fel- 
lows in that concern which society feels lest he be not 
equal to the obHgations of citizenship in this great 
democracy. The man of wealth and leisure society 
scans no less dubiously as it seeks to discern the proper 



366 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

fitting of his sons and daughters for their share in the 
common heritage of civic obhgation. With every indi- 
cation of the increase in the numbers of those physi- 
cally defective or morally delinquent all normal mem- 
bers of the social body instinctively shudder. Who has 
not, at times, caught gUmpses of this thing we call 
democracy, in its nakedness, appearing to our startled 
vision as some grewsome creature, its deformities laid 
bare in some lightning's flash of circumstance? 

If Aristotle had said the last word as to the efficiency 
of education as a national resource we might be excus- 
able if we looked with pessimistic vision toward the 
future. There is nothing in his words suggestive either 
of industrial efficiency or of social conservation. It is 
in the fact that subsequent ages have witnessed a vast 
increase in the scope and meaning of popular education 
that we find grounds for a splendid optimism. At no 
time in the history of education has there been seen such 
a broadening and deepening of educational thought and 
outlook as is now apparent. We are in the midst of a 
great social movement bounded by no lands and by no 
seas. 

3. The Great Question of Social Conservation 

Everywhere we hear of numerous problems which are 
being discussed, such as the following: vocational gui- 
dance and education; continuation schools and schools 
for the out-of-school classes; child-labor and compul- 
sory-attendance legislation; physical education and 
health, including the playground movement; care of 
the poor and underfed; sex-hygiene and moral educa- 
tion; the care and training of defectives and delin- 
quents; vacation schools; free high schools for all with 
equitable cost of schooling as affected by books, dis- 



THE FORWARD LOOK 367 

tance pupils have to go, or transportation. All these 
are but parts of that larger social movement — the 
great question of social conservation. 

4. The "Feeling of Nationality" Our Hope 

We turn, then, to the one steady, persistent hope as 
we read its interpretation in the tendencies of to-day. 
From the clear note of the past, blending harmoniously 
with the stronger tones of the present, we read the 
promise of future security. One doubt only remains: 
Will the masses also hear and respond? By what means 
are we to arouse and concentrate popular interest with 
sufficient force upon the task of perfecting a system of 
free pubhc education that is equal to our pecuHar situa- 
tion? "If the feeling of nationality is alive among a 
people," writes Doctor Georg Kerschensteiner, "unify- 
ing forces appear of themselves without compulsion from 
any central authority, even in decentrahzed govern- 
mental functions. This is true of the Httle Swiss fed- 
eration as well as of Germany and America, and it is 
an indication that healthy organization, adapted to the 
living conditions of a nation, will make its own way 
everywhere." 

It is this "feeling of nationality" upon which we must 
depend, then, for the further and more adequate devel- 
opment of our educational forces and their common ac- 
ceptance by the masses. It is upon this basis that the 
appeal of this volume is made to the American pubhc. 
Nothing short of a profound faith in the ultimate ex- 
pression of the people as it shall appear in the structures 
they rear, through their laws, for the right education 
of all the children and youth of the land can bring 
order and security to this democracy. Our school sys- 
tem has thus far successfully met and turned aside the 



368 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

dangers of ecclesiastical control. The sway of the poli- 
tician in certain departments of this branch of social 
service seems to be steadily waning. We have still to 
deal with a certain type of narrow industrialism that 
would make of the schools a training place for human 
machines instead of thinking men and women who are 
bigger than their jobs. 

Our greatest danger, after all, seems to appear among 
the ranks of those who are assumed to be society's 
experts in the field of education. This is true not nec- 
essarily because of any positive attitude or movement 
against those readjustments which the educational situ- 
ation demands. It appears more in a negative attitude 
of indifference and inaction, too often, alas! the result 
of ignorance rather than deliberate choice. From what 
has been presented in the preceding pages there appear at 
least five things which should be insisted upon. In this 
insistence will be needed that ^'feeling of nationahty" 
to which Doctor Kerschensteiner refers. In fact, it should 
have an intensity amounting to real patriotism — a patri- 
otism strong enough to enable us all, educators, legisla- 
tors, members of educational boards, and all others 
called to lead in the promulgation of educational ideals, 
to put aside all lesser motives for the nation's good. 

5. The Five Essentials to Progress 

The five things most necessary are as follows: i. The 
thorough and continuous study of the present and changing 
social needs, both local and national, as related to our sys- 
tem of public education. In this respect it seems that we 
have been guilty of serious neglect. The present indus- 
trial outcry against the work of our schools is in evi- 
dence here. Our teachers and supervisors, and practi- 
cally all institutions for the training of teachers, should 



THE FORWARD LOOK 369 

respond promptly and wisely to this call. But there 
should be no undue haste. It would be folly for the 
people to rush to the building of special schools with 
none prepared to teach them. No less ill-timed would 
it be for teachers to prepare themselves before the peo- 
ple are ready to provide for the lines of work which 
industry demands. 

The people are too ready to assume that anything 
may be taught in the schools by simply printing it in 
a curriculum. They do not always realize that the time 
and resources of the schools are already employed to 
the utmost limit. Many unthinkingly attribute all op- 
position by teachers and supervisors to the immediate 
introduction of vocational courses to a general disap- 
proval of such work. What is needed is that all should 
get together. Those who are the chosen leaders in these 
matters should study the problem, socially and educa- 
tionally, and seek to adjust the schools to the doing of 
these evidently necessary things in the most economic 
and efi&cient way possible. In this respect America has 
a peculiar problem which each State must solve in its 
own way. And this will be done. The coming school 
system will provide equal opportunity, commensurately 
with capacity, for the training of every future citizen 
of the Republic not made so by the act of naturalization. 

2. The freeing of all educational experts from political 
influence in their appointment. This applies to all 
teachers and those closely related to the administration 
of instruction. To make this possible every superin- 
tendent of schools, every principal or president of a 
school or an institution, should be selected by an inter- 
mediary board whose members are chosen at large for 
the unit of control which they represent and who are 
elected by the people in a manner distinct from regu- 



370 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

lar political elections. This applies to districts, cities, 
counties, and States, and is a vitally essential step in 
the forward movement of education. 

3. There need to he established by all the States right 
standards for the preparation of teachers and supervising 
officers. Some States have already led in the fixing of 
such standards. The best thought of the country is 
pretty generally agreed as to what these standards 
should be. If there remains any doubt, it is with ref- 
erence to superintendents and supervisors. Compara- 
tively little attention has been given to the special 
training required for these officials. Yet there is no 
point in our system of education where the need of 
reform is more acute. The obstacles in the way are 
selfish rather than patriotic motives. The ''feeling of 
nationality" is sadly lacking here. 

4. The principles of good business management should 
he much more fully applied not only to the business admin- 
istration of education hut also to many matters closely re- 
lated to the administration of instruction. There needs 
to be a better accounting system for the finances of the 
schools; but along with this should also be a fuller ac- 
counting on the side of output, of achievement of the 
schools, as compared with the investment, in capital 
and lives, which society is annually making in them. 
There should be a more businesslike management of the 
health problem; of the care of defectives and deHn- 
quents; of the whole business of classification, both as 
to Knes of preparation which individuals should pursue 
and also as to forward movements of classes or indi- 
viduals in the processes of education. 

Our whole scheme for the training of teachers in service 
is crying out for readjustment in the interests of econ- 
omy and effectiveness. Too many teachers' gatherings 



THE FORWARD LOOK 371 

are held without sufficiently definite results. The feel- 
ing seems to prevail that they can be made to atone 
for inadequate preparation. Teachers meet together 
in large masses, in district, State, and national gather- 
ings, with little definite, organized work. The theory 
is that '' inspiration" is the great thing needed. As a 
consequence, there is large expenditure of time and 
money quite out of proportion to the results attained. 
5. There is urgent necessity that more care he taken in 
the cultivation of right habits and the inculcation of such 
ideals as shall form a basis for a better morality and for 
good conduct. It has been truthfully said that intellec- 
tual keenness is the most powerful instrument of de- 
struction or injury which can be put at the disposal of 
depraved and criminally minded members of society. 
Along with all plans for the betterment of instruction 
should go the careful adjustment to it of those exer- 
cises, lessons, and experiences which shall make for better 
character. ''Although we talk a good deal about what 
the wide-spread education of this country means," says 
Theodore Roosevelt, "I question if many of us deeply 
consider its meaning. From the lowest grade of the 
public school to the highest form of university training, 
education in this country is at the disposal of every 
man, every woman who chooses to work for and obtain 
it. . . . Each one of us, then, who has an education, 
school or college, has obtained something from the com- 
munity at large for which he or she has not paid, and 
no self-respecting man or woman is content to rest per- 
manently under such an obligation. Where the State 
has bestowed education the man who accepts it must 
be content to accept it merely as a charity unless he 
returns it to the State in full in the shape of good citi- 
zenship." 



REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING, BY CHAPTERS 
AND IN GENERAL 

Chapter II. National Ideals and Standards 

1. Draper, Andrew S., "The Nation's Educational Purpose." 

N. E. A. Proc, 1905. 

2. Martin, G. H., "Evolution of the Massachusetts Public 

School System." 

Chapter III. Evolution of the Free Common School 

1. Anderson, L. F., "History of Common School Education." 

Henry Holt and Co., 1909. 

2. Brown, S. W., "The Secularization of American Education." 

Teachers College, Columbia Univ., Contributions to Edu- 
cation, 1910. 

3. Campbell, Douglass, "The Puritan in Holland, England and 

America," 2 vols. Harpers. 

4. Kilpatrick, W. H., "The Dutch Schools of New Netherland 

and Colonial New York." U. S. Bureau of Ed. Bulletin, 
1912, no. 12. 

5. Parker, S. C, "The History of Modern Elementary Educa- 

tion." Ginn and Co., 1912. 

Chapter IV. The Establishment of Schools: Laws and 
Units of Control 

I. Snyder, Edwin R., "The Legal Status of Rural High Schools 

in the United States." New York, 1909. 

Chapter VI. The System as Tested by the Five Princi- 
ples OF Chapter V 

1. N. E. A. Bulletin, 1913, pp. 19-29. 

2. Pritchett, Henry S., in Carnegie Foundation Report, 191 1, on 

"Educational Progress and Tendencies from a National 
Point of View," pp. 45-123. 
372 



REFERENCES FOR READING 373 

3. Report of the Michigan State Commission on Industrial and 
Agricultural Education, Lansing, Mich., 1910. 

Chapter VII. Boards of Education 

1. Ellis, W. S., "Organization of the School Board," N. E. A. 

Proc, 1910, pp. 631-4. 

2. Foght, H. W., "The American Rural School," ch. II. Mac- 

millan, 1911. 

3. Hunsiker, B. L., "Functions of School Boards." N. E. A. 

Proc, 1903, pp. 910-914. 

4. Jones, L. H., "Best Methods of Electing School Boards," N. 

E. A. Proc, 1903, pp. 158-9. 

5. Moore, E. C, " How New York City Administers Its Schools." 

World Book Co., 1913. 

6. Report of the Education Commission of the City of Chicago. 

Chicago, 1899. 

7. Report of Commission Appointed to Study the System of 

Education of the Public Schools of Baltimore. U. S. 
Bureau of Ed. Bulletin, 191 1, no. 4. 

Chapter VIII. Maintenance and Other Fiscal Aspects 
of Education 

1. Cubberley, E. P., "School Funds and Their Apportionment." 

Teachers College, Columbia Univ., 1906. 

2. Elliott, E. C, "Some Fiscal Aspects of Education in American 

Cities." Teachers College, Columbia Univ., 1905. 

3. Jackson, Geo. L., "The Development of School Support in 

Colonial Massachusetts." Teachers College, Columbia 
Univ., 1909. 

4. Sies, Raymond W., "Teachers' Pension Systems in Great 

Britain." U. S. Bureau of Ed. Bulletin, 1913, no. 34. 

5. Strayer, G. D., "City School Expenditures." Teachers Col- 

lege, Columbia Univ., Contributions to Education, 1905. 

6. Updegraff, Harlan, "A Study of Expenses of City School 

Systems." U. S. Bureau of Ed. Bulletin, 1912, no. 5. 

Chapter IX. Preparation of Teachers 

I. Brown, J. F., "The Training of Teachers for Secondary 
Schools." Macmillan, 191 1. 



374 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

2. Home, H. H., ''The Function of a School of Pedagogy." 

Education 30 : 275-280. 

3. Ruediger, W. C, "Agencies for the Improvement of Teachers 

in Service." U. S. Bureau of Ed. Bulletin, 191 1, no. 3. 

4. Williams, H. G., "The Place of the Normal School in Educa- 

tion." N. E. A. Proc, 1909, pp. 548-556. 

Chapter X. The Selection of Teachers 

1. Bachman, F. P., " Certification of Teachers Prepared by State 

Institutions." Education 26 : 40. 

2. Cowdrick, "The Licensing of Teachers." Education ig : 2gg. 

3. Cubberley, E. P., in Fifth Year Book, part II, Nat. Society 

for the Study of Ed., 1906. 

4. N. E. A. Proc, 1897, pp. 297-8. "Round Table Discussion 

of Certification." 

5. N. E. A. Proc, 1905, pp. 240-1. Report of Com. on "Inter- 

state Recognition of High Grade Teachers' Certificates." 

6. Updegraff, Harlan, "Teachers' Certificates Issued under Gen- 

eral State Laws and Regulations." U. S. Bureau of Ed. 
Bulletin, 191 1, no. 18. 

Chapter XL Physical Equipment of Schools 

1. Dressier, Fletcher B., "School Hygiene." Macmillan, 1913. 

2. Hollister, H. A., "Public School Buildings and Their Equip- 

ment, with Special Reference to High Schools." Univ. 
of 111. School of Education Bulletin, no. i, 1909. 

Chapter XIIL Supervision 

1. Bobbitt, Franklin, "The Supervision of City Schools." 

Twelfth Year Book, part I, Nat. Society for Study of 
Ed., 1913. 

2. Chancellor W. E., "Our Schools — Their Administration and 

Supervision." D. C. Heath and Co., 1905. 

3. Jessup, W. A., "Social Factors Affecting Special Supervision." 

Teachers College, Columbia Univ., Contributions to Edu- 
cation, 191 1. 

4. Perry, A. C, Jr., "The Management of a City School." 

Macmillan, 1908. 



REFERENCES FOR READING 375 

5. Suzzalo, Henry, "The Rise of Local School Supervision in 

Massachusetts." New York, 1906. 

Chapter XIV. The Inspection of Schools 

1. Henderson, Joseph L., "Admission to College by Certificate." 

Teachers College, Columbia Univ., Contributions to Ed., 
1912. 

2. "History of High School Inspection." Bulletin no. 2. Board 

on Secondary School Relations, Iowa. 

3. School Laws enacted by the 80th General Assembly of Ohio 

at its Extraordinary Session, 1914. 

Chapter XV. School Attendance 

1. Ayres, Leonard P., "Laggards in Our Schools." Russell Sage 

Foundation, New York, 1909. 

2. Keyes, C. H., "Progress through the Grades of City Schools. 

A Study of Acceleration and Arrest." Teachers College, 
Columbia Univ., 191 1. 

3. Strayer, G. D., "Age and Grade Census of Schools and Col- 

leges." U. S. Bureau of Ed. Bulletin, 191 1, no. 5. 

4. Thorndike, E. L., "The Elimination of Pupils from School." 

U. S. Bureau of Ed. Bulletin, 1907, no. 4. 

Chapter XVI. Physical Education and Health 

1. Gulick and Ayres, "Medical Inspection of Schools." Russell 

Sage Foundation, New York, 1908. 

2. Wood, Dr. Thomas D., "Health and Education." Ninth 

Year Book, part I, Nat. Society for the Study of Ed., 1910. 
Wood, Dr. Thomas D. and others, "The Nurse in 
Education." Ninth Year Book, part II, do. 

Chapter XVII. The Curricula of the Schools 

1. Brown, J. F., "The American High School," ch. III. Mac- 

millan, 1909. 

2. Hollister, H. A., "The Program of Studies," ch. VII in 

"High School Administration." D. C. Heath and Co., 
1909. 

3. McMurry, Frank M., Report as Member of Committee on 

School Inquiry. New York City, 1913. 



376 ADMINISTRATION OF EDUCATION 

4. Miinsterberg, Hugo, ''Vocation and Learning." The Peo- 

ple's University, St. Louis, 191 2. 

5. Row, Robert K., "The Educational Meaning of Manual Arts 

and Industries." Row, Peterson and Co., 1909. 

6. Snedden, David S., "The Problem of Vocational Education." 

Houghton Mifflin Co., 1910. 

Chapter XVIII. The Teacher 

1. Bagley, W. C, "Craftsmanship in Teaching." Macmillan, 

1911. 

2. Coffman, L. D., "The Social Composition of the Teaching 

Population." Teachers College, Columbia Univ., Con- 
tributions to Education, 191 1. 

3. Colgrove, C. P., "The Teacher and the School." Scribners. 

4. Perry, Arthur C, Jr., "The Status of the Teacher." Hough- 

ton Mifflin Co., 191 2. 

5. Thorndike, E. L., "The Teaching Staff of the Secondary 

Schools of the United States." U. S. Bureau of Ed. 
Bulletin, 1909, no. 4. 

Chapter XIX. Classification and Promotions 

1. Blan, L. B., "A Special Study of the Incidence of Retarda- 

tion." Teachers College, Columbia Univ., Contributions 
to Education, 191 1. 

2. Dearborn, Walter D., "The Relative Standing of Pupils in 

the High School and in the University." University of 
Wisconsin Bulletin, no. 312, High School Series, no. 6. 

3. Sies, Raymond W., "Scientific Grading of College Students." 

Univ. of Pittsburg Bulletin, vol. VIII, no. 21. 

4. VanSickle-Witner-Ayres, "Provision for Exceptional Children 

in Public Schools." U. S. Bureau of Ed. Bulletin, 191 1, 
no. 14. 

Chapter XX. Activities and Relations of the School 

1. Perry, C. A., "The Wider Use of the School Plant." Russell 

Sage Foundation, New York, 1910. 

2. "The City School as a Community Centre." Tenth Year 

Book, part I, Nat. Society for the Study of Education. 

3. "The Rural School as a Community Centre." Tenth Year 

Book, part II, do. 



REFERENCES FOR READING 377 



Chapter XXI. Private Education and Benefactions as 
Related to Public Education 

I. Bureau of Ed. Report, 1911, vol. I, pp. 29-34. 

In General 

1. Bard, H. E., "The City School District." Teachers College 

Columbia Univ., Contributions to Education, 1909. 

2. Butler, Nicholas Murray, "The Meaning of Education," 

Macmillan, 1898. 

3. Cubberley, E. P., and others. Report of Survey of the Pubhc 

School System of the City of Portland, Ore. 

4. Davenport, Eugene, "Education for Efficiency." D. C. 

Heath and Co., 1909. 

5. Draper, Andrew S., "American Education." Houghton 

Mifflin Co., 1909. 

6. Education in Vermont, Bulletin No. 7, parts I and II. The 

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Learning. 

7. Garber, J. P., "Current Educational Activities." Lippin- 

cott, 1912. 

8. Hoag, Ernest B., "Organized Health Work in Schools," 

U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1913, no. 44. 

9. Johnston, C. H., and others. "High School Education." 

Scribners, 191 2. 

10. Kerschensteiner, Georg, "A Comparison of Public Education 

in Germany and in the United States." U. S. Bureau of 
Education Bulletin, 1913, no. 24. 

11. King, Irving, "Social Aspects of Education." Macmillan, 

191 2. (Contains well-chosen bibliographies on several 
topics discussed in the preceding pages.) 

12. Maxwell, William H., "A Quarter Century of Public School 

Development." American Book Co., 1912. 

13. Strayer and Thorndike, "Educational Administration." 

Macmillan, 1913. 

14. Yocum, A. D., "Culture, Discipline and Democracy." 

Christopher Sower Co., 1913. 



INDEX 



{Numbers refer to pages) 



Academic freedom, 246. 

Academy of Arts and Sciences, Bos- 
ton, 41. 

Adams Act, 17. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 41. 

Adams, John, 41, 42, 43. 

Administration defined, 221-223. 

Alabama, 127, 259. 

All-year schools, 353. 

American Institute of Homeopathy, 
286. 

American Medical Association, 282, 
286. 

Anderson, L. F., 24. 

Anglo-Saxon, 7, 140. 

AnnapoUs, 20, 70. 

Appalachians, 19. 

Appointments Committees, 202. 

Aristotle, i, 43, 362, 365. 

Arkansas, 127, 259. 

Athens, Ga., 259. 

Athens, Ohio, 257. 

Attendance, compulsory, 99, 100, 253, 
268, 269, 271, 275, 360. 

Australia, 4. 

Austria, 27, 29. 

Ayres, Leonard P., 272, 278. 

Bagley, W. C, 160. 

Balliet, T. M., 61, 62. 

Baltimore, 65, 122. 

Bard, H. E., 161. 

Barnard, Henry, 134. 

Barrows, Miss, 294, 295. 

Belgium, 26, 

Berlin, 43. 

Binet-Simon tests, 290. 

Blewett, Superintendent Ben, 353. 

Board of Education, State, 51, 66, 69, 

113, 114, 129-131. 
Boards of Education of different units 

(chapter), 106-132. 
Boston, 140, 232, 282. 
Boston Academy of Arts and Sciences, 

41. 



Bowling Green, Ohio, 254. 

Boyville, 274. 

British Isles, 40. 

Brown, Elmer E., 166. 

Buchanan, President, 16. 

Bureau of Education, United States, 

17, 70, 83. 
Butler, Nicholas Murray, 21, 22. 

California, 46, 50, 63, 66, 70, 91, 96, 
194, 204, 25s, 272, 349. 

Cambridge, England, 40. 

Cambridge, Mass., 232, 331-332. 

Campbell, Douglass, 40. 

Campbell, Fred M., 145. 

Canada, 4, 360. 

Canadian provinces, 297. 

Carlton, F. L., 134, 135, 137, 

Carnegie, Andrew, 215, 360, 

Carnegie Foundation, 157, 360. 

Carnegie Institute, 360. 

Carter, James G., 17, 20, 126. 

Certificating Board, College Entrance, 
253. 

Certification, 65, 69, 186-189. 

Chicago, 80, 122. 

Child-labor laws, 271, 275, 276, 360. 

Cincinnati, 78, 

Cincinnati University, 258, 364. 

City training schools, 80, 171, 172. 

Civil War, 41, 49, 173. 

Classification and promotions (chap- 
ter), 326-340. 

Cleveland, 80, 348, 3S1, 353- 

Clews, 33, 34, 133- 

Coffman, L. D., 314. 

College Entrance Certificating Board, 

253- 
Colonies, 2, 17, 29; 38-40; 45, 48, 134. 
Colorado, 47, 194, 268. 
Colorado Normal School, 204. 
Columbia, District of, 70, 286. 
Columbia University, 35, 175. 
Columbus, Ohio, 254. 
Comeniu.s, 4i> 43' 
379 



380 



INDEX 



Commissioner of Education, United 

States, 17, 143, 195, 268, 356. 
Compensation of teachers, 151-155. 
Compulsory attendance, 99, 100, 253, 

268, 269, 271, 275, 360. 
Congress, 14, 16, 19, 45, 71, I34» 360. 
Connecticut, 15, 33, 47, 57, 68, 127, 

133, 143, 179, 186. 
Continuation schools, 75, 79, 240, 366. 
Cousin, M. Victor, 43. 
Cubberley, E. P., 142, 194, 198. 
Curricula of the schools (chapter), 289- 

312. 

Dabney, Charles W., 364. 

Daily programme, 341-42- 

Dartmouth College, 34. 

Declaration of Independence, 44. 

Defectives, 81, 82, 84, 105, 121, 217, 
227, 240, 276, 301, 366, 370, 

Delaware, 35, 40, 68, 78, 80. 

Delinquents, 81, 82, 84, 105, 217, 227, 
27s, 366, 370. 

Demosthjenes, 317. 

Denmark, 26, 29. 

Denver, 204. 

Department of Superintendents of 
the National Education Associa- 
tion, 338. 

Detroit, 140. 

Dewey, John, 305, 306. 

Direct taxation, 141. 

District of Columbia, 70, 286. 

Draper, Lyman, 134. 

Dutch, I, 26, 35, 36, 40, 41. 

Dutton and Snedden, 65, 68. 

Education, 166. 

Education Board, General, 66, 254, 

258, 259, 360. 
Educational foundations, 359. 
Edticalional Review, 178. 
Eliot, Charles W., 139, 140- 
Elliott, E. C, 249. 
Elmira experiment, 317. 
England, 27, 28, 39, 4i» i35- 
Ethical and professional attitude of 

the teacher, 317-321. 
Evolution of free common schools 

(chapter), 24-42. 
Extension work, 350-51. 

Fairlie, J. A., 60, 62, 65, 68. 
Fatigue, 342-43- 
Federal Government, 15-17, 20. 
Federal policy concerning education, 

14; 16-17, 19. 21. 
Feeling of nationality, 367-68. 



Fellenberg, 43. 

Ferdinand William III, 25. 

Ferry, M., 29. 

Fichte, 43. 

Five essentials of progress, 368-370. 

Florida, 66, 112, 127, 128, 194, 259. 

Foght, H. W., 297. 

France, 2, 21, 28, 29, 41, 42, 115. 

Francis, J. H., 211, 349. 

Franco-Prussian War, 2, 28. 

FrankHn, 41, 43. 

Frederick the Great, 25. 

French, F. G., 26. 

Froebel, 76. 

Gardena high school, 348. 
Gary, Ind., 76, 229, 307. 
General Court of Elections, 33. 
General Education Board, 66, 254; 

258-260. 
George Jr. Republic, 274, 306. 
Georgia, 37, 47, 66, 112, 127, 194, 

259- 
German Empire, 2, 25, 106, 347, 367. 
German Universities, 43. 
Germanic races, 52. 
Goodnow, F. J., 65. 
Gottingen, 43. 
Governor Wentworth, 34. 
Granville, 111., 16. 
Greek scholars, 29. 
Guizot's law, 28. 
Gulick, Luther G., 9, 278. 

Haaren, Associate Superintend- 
ent, 269. 
Hackney, E. T., 255. 
Halle, 43. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 14, 126. 
Hampton, 306. 
Hanus, Paul H., 122, 310. 
Harper, William R., 122. 
Harris, WiUiam T., 138. 
Harvard College, 33, 232. 
Hawley, Gideon, 68. 
Helen Kellar, 317. 
Henderson, Joseph L., 264, 265. 
Hogarth, A. H., 278. 
Holland, 26, 29, 40. 
Holmes, Doctor George J., 278. 
Hood, William H., 156. 
Humboldt, 29. 

Idaho, 47, 194. 

Illinois, 63, 64, 91, 194, 258. 

Illinois Educational Commission, 65, 

68. 
Independence Day, 238. 



INDEX 



381 



Indiana, 46, 57, 62, 64, 153, 179, 255, 

268, 286, 287. 
Industrial education, 79, 89. 
Industrial League, 16. 
Inspection, medical, 93, 94, 233, 278, 

279, 282, 285. 
Inspection of Schools (chapter), 249- 

265. 
Iowa, 57, 62, 70, 91, 143, 256, 258, 264. 
Italy, 2. 

James, Edmund J., 16. 

Japan, 2, 8. 

Jeanes Fund, 361. 

Jeanes, Miss Anna L., 361. 

Jefiferson, Thomas, 14, 36; 41-43; 50, 

363. 
Jessup, W. A., 228. 
Johnston, C. H., 249. 
Journal of Education, 138. 

Kansas, 67, 70, 112, 114, 187, 194, 

255, 264, 287. 
Kent, Ohio, 257. 

Kentucky, 66, 112, 119, 127, 259. 
Kerschensteiner, Doctor Georg, 357, 

367, 368. 
King's College, 35. 
Kirkpatrick, W. H., 35. 
Klemm, L. R., 25, 27. 
Knox, John, 28. 

Landrath, 31. 

Landrecht, 25. 

Latin schools, 26, 172. 

Latin states, 29. 

Leland Stanford University, 285. 

Leyden, 40. 

Library of Congress, 83. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 16. 

Locke, John, 40, 41, 43. 

Long Island City, 349. 

Los Angeles, 76, 204, 211, 307, 310, 

348, 349- 
Louisiana, 57, 66, 127, 180, 194, 257. 
Louisiana Purchase, 49. 
Lunch problem, 344-345- 
Luther, Martin, 43, 362. 

McCall, Charles A., 275-276. 
McClymonds, J. W., 333. 
McMurry, Frank M., 310. 
Maine, 127, 169, 179. 
Maintenance of schools, a working 

scheme, 146-15 1. 
Manhattan, 334, 335. 
Mann, Horace, 18, 20, 54, 126, 363. 
Manual training schools, 75, 79. 



Maria Theresa, 37. 
Martin, G. H., 12. 
Maryland, 36, 66, 127. 
Massachusetts, i, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20, 

29, 32, 33, 37, 42, 44, 47, 48, 53, 61, 

68, 126, 133, 143, 169, 179, 186, 252, 

263, 287, 363. 
Massachusetts Bay, 133. 
Maxwell, Superintendent W. H., 273, 

274, 334- 
Medical Association, American, 282, 

286. 
Medical education, 254. 
Medical inspection, 93, 94, 233, 278, 

279, 282, 285. 
Memphis, 348. 
Mexican lands, 49. 
Michigan, 47, 57, 62, 112, 194, 254, 

255, 268, 287. 
Michigan State Commission, 298. 
Military schools, 75. 
Milton, 41, 43. 
Milwaukee, 351. 
Minnesota, 47, 50, 57, 70, 179, 180, 

25s, 287. 
Mississippi, 47, 78, 112, 127, 143, 194, 

259- 
Missouri, 47, 57, 62, 194, 25s, 268. 
Mobile, 65. 
Monastic schools, 24. 
Montana, 112, 194, 255. 
Moore, E. C, 122, 132, 150. 
Morrill Act, 16, 17. 

Napoleon, 28, 42. 

Napoleonic wars, 2, 25. 

Nashville, 204. 

National Association of State Univer- 
sities, 265. 

National Education Association, 122, 
152. 

National University, 14, 19. 

Nautical schools, 75, 79. 

Naval school, 70. 

Naval training stations, 70. 

Naval war college, 70. 

Nelson amendment, 17. 

Netherlands, 26, 41. 

Nevada, 47, 80. 

New Amsterdam, i, 12. 

Newark, N. J., 275, 278, 290, 352, 353. 

New England, 12, 18, 20; 3(>~3^', 40> 
44, 57, 61, 76, 117, 126, 127, 129, 
133, 134, 186, 229, 253, 363- 

Newfoundland, 360. 

New Hampshire, 34, 127, 268, 287. 

New Jersey, 35, 62, 68, 112, 143, 194, 
276. 



382 



INDEX 



New York, 15, 35, 40, 42, 47, 50, 68, 

76, IIS, 126, 128, 169, 180, 194, 209, 

216, 229, 253, 263. 
New York City, 78, 80, 122, 132, 140, 

269, 270, 273, 274, 294, 310, 334, 

350, 360. 
New York City University, 61, 150. 
New Zealand, 4. 
Nomination and appointment of 

teachers, 199-208. 
Normal schools, 15, 26, 28, 30, 46, 69, 

75, 80, 104, 166; 168-175; 177. 179, 

245, 261, 262, 354, 357. 
North Carolina, 36, 44, 66, 77, 78, 127, 

25Q- 
North Central States, 254, 255. 
North Dakota, 46, 57, 62, 255, 
Northwest Territory, 44, 49. 
Norway, 27, 29. 
Nussbaum, Miss Sophie, 26. 

Oakland, Cal., 56, 145, 204, 208, 

274, 333, 337- 
Ohio, 57, 62, 78, 112, 179, 194, 256, 

257, 264, 286, 349. 
Ohio Normal Colleges, 257. 
Ohio Normal Schools, 257. 
Ohio State University, 256. 
Oklahoma, 47; 112-115; 195. 
Ordinance of 1787, 14, 49, 134, 363. 
Oregon, 66, 112, 143. 
Orient, 2. 

Oxford, England, 40. 
Oxford, Ohio, 257. 

Parental schools, 268, 273, 275 

Parish system, 37, 52. 

Peabody College for Teachers, 80. 

Pennsylvania, i, 12, 15, 34, 40, 47, 62, 
127, 134, 169, 194, 288, 349. 

Penn, William, 34. 

Pensions, teachers', 156-160. 

Persistence of an educational ideal, 
362-365. 

Personality in teaching, 316, 317. 

Pestalozzi, 43. 

Philadelphia, 78, 80, 204, 361. 

Philippines, 70. 

Physical education, 228, 234, 240, 279, 
280, 300, 366. 

Physical education and health (chap- 
ter), 277-288. 

Pilgrims, 40, 41, 48. 

Plato, I, 43. 

Playground and Recreation Associa- 
tion, 287. 

Playgrounds, 124, 279; 286-288. 

Play instinct, 343. 



Popular support of schools, 133-141. 

Portland, Ore., 122. 

Porto Rico, 70. 

Preparation of teachers (chapter), 

164-181; 223, 224. 
Prevocational schools, 307. 
Principles by which to test schools, 72- 

75; 90-105. 
Pritchett, Henry S., 157, 158, 357.^ 
Private education and benefactions 

(chapter), 356-361. 
Providence, R. I., 288. 
Prussia, 2, 16, 21, 25; 29-31; 230. 
Psychological clinic, 94, 105, 215, 233, 

280, 283. 

Quakers, i, 34. 

Ramage, J. R., 37. 
Reconstruction period, 49. 
Reformation, 12, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32, 38, 

133- 
Reformatories, 268. 
Regents' examinations, 253. 
Renaissance, 29. 
Rest, 344. 

Revolutionary war, 37, 42. 
Rhode Island, 15, 70, 77, 127, 179, 

288. 
Rockefeller, John D., 360. 
Rockies, 19. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 371. 
Rousseau, 43. 
Royce, Josiah, 304. 
Rural schools, 84-87; 103, 104, 137, 

170, 202, 229, 293, 295; 297-299; 

361. 
Russell Sage Foundation, 93, 282, 286, 

361. 
Russia, 29. 

Sage, Mrs. Russell, 361. 

Saint Louis, 80, 140, 162, 310, 353. 

San Antonio, 282. 

San Francisco, 65, 140. 

Scandinavia, 2. 

School accounting, 161-163. 

School and Home Education, 160. 

School as a community, 347-348. 

School attendance (chapter), 266-276. 

School buildings, 210-215. 

School gardens, 348. 

School legislation, 44-51. 

School savings-banks, 349. 

Scotland, 27-29; 40, 178. 

Scriptures, 28. 

Secularization of education, 5, 32, 134. 

Sequence in education, 289-290. 



INDEX 



383 



Sierras, 19. 

Sies, Raymond W., ssg. 

Smith, A. T., 27, 28. 

Smith, C. L., 36. 

Smithsonian Institution, 83. 

Snedden and Dutton, 65, 68. 

Snedden, David, 178. 

Social survey, 294, 295. 

South Carolina, 37, 47, 49, 66, 78, 127, 
143, 194. 259- 

South Dakota, 57, 62, 91, 112, 180, 
194, 255. 

Spain, I. 

Spokane, 204. 

State Universities, National Associa- 
tion of, 265. 

Stewart, J. S., 259. 

Supervision of schools, 85-87; (chap- 
ter), 225-248; (definition), 249- 
252. 

Swiss Federation, 367. 

Switzerland, 29. 

Taxation, 7, 48, 135, 137, 138, 140, 

141. 
Taxation, direct, 141. 
Teachers' Agency, 202. 
Teachers College, 175, 232. 
Technical schools, 75, 79. 
Tennessee, 57, 66, 80, 127, 179, 194, 

259, 268. 
Terman, Doctor, 285. 
Texas, 47, 49, 127, 180, 255, 259, 

268. 
The teacher (chapter), 313-325- 
Thorndike, E. L., 276, 304. 
Trade schools, 75, 79. 
Training schools, city, 80, 171, 172. 
Truancy, 267, 273, 274. 
Turkish domain, 27. 
Turner, J. B., 16. 
Tuskegee, 306. 
Types of schools established, 75-83. 

United States Bureau of Educa- 
tion, 17, 70, 83. 



United States Commissioner of Edu- 
cation, 17, 143, 195, 268, 356. 

Units of control, 52-71; 83-88; 241. 

Universal education, 12. 

Universities, 26, 27, 28, 30, 69, 75, 78, 
104, 246, 254, 261, 263, 264, 288, 
295,300,354, 356,357- 

University of Chicago, 258. 

University of Cincinnati, 258, 364. 

University of Colorado, 204. 

University of Copenhagen, 26. 

University of Illinois, 16. 

University of Michigan, 42. 

University of Minnesota, 258, 

University of Missouri, 339-340. 

University of New York, 14. 

University of Texas, 264. 

Utah, 46, 147, 180, 268. 



Vacation schools, 75, 351, 352, 354, 

366. 
Vermont, 127. 
Virginia, 36, 37, 47, 50, 78, 112, 127, 

143, 204, 258. 
Visiting nurse, 233. 
Vocational guidance, 240, 294, 295. 
Vocationally selective courses, 294. 

Washington, D. C, 70, 360. 
Washington, George, 14, 19. 
Washington State, 47, 96. 
Wentworth, Governor, 34. 
West Point, 20, 70. 
West Virginia, 112, 258. 
William and Mary's College, 78. 
Wilson, President Woodrow, 364. 
Wirt, Superintendent, 307. 
Wisconsin, 169, 255, 268, 288, 353, 

355- 
Wolfe, L. E., 348. 
Woodward, C. M., 140. 
Wyoming, 47, 80. 
Wythe, 36. 



Yale College, 33, 



